The Uncanny Valley...

[Big Orange]

When I was a toddler I watched Thunderbirds and for some reason it subconciously distrubed me in a profound way, making me cry violently. I found the fairly lifelike but not human puppets unsettling, and they gave me vivid nightmares, in the disconcertain way they moved and talked. That must've been the Uncanny Valley effect: the more realistic a puppet/animated character/robot gets, the more overtly eerie and ghoulish it is. That is why CGI movies with less realistic characters in them (such as Antz and Finding Nemo) are generally well received, while CGI movies featuring more human like characters are generally panned (like The Polar Express which might as well been renamed The Haunted Dummy Express).

A Japanese animatronics artist, Masahiro Mori, was the first person to coin the term, "Uncanny Valley", after a robot copy of her daughter invoked a negative reaction in her. In science fiction, the Uncanny Valley effect is occasionally used in the depiction of androids and cyborgs - Mr. Data's attempt at laughter in this video at 0:55 is more scary than the alien brainbugs that came on later in that episode. The Borg drones are also somewhere in the Valley, especially when they are "sleeping" in their alcoves.

Of course the Uncanny Valley predominantly features in The Terminator, especially when the T-800s passing as humans are seriously damaged and revealing their mechanical innards. Also when Skynet first attempted to make its android soldiers pass off as human, they had rubber skin as their disguise, which was a dismal failure. Some people theorise why there is a subconscious Uncanny Valley and it is some kind of alarm mechanism to catch out people who are seriously ill or injured and (perhaps controversially) also pick out people who are mentally disabled. I personally think very drunk people belong in the Valley as well.

[darthdavid]

Your initial statement is slightly off. It's not a case of more realism automatically making something eerie, we actually empathize more and more easily with something until it hits the uncanny valley, then things get creepy then, theoretically, at a certain point something will become realistic enough that we empathize with something as though it were a real human. That's why it's called a "valley". If you were to make a graph of how much we empathize with something with it's realism on the x-axis and our empathy towards it on the y-axis there would be a range of values where the realism isn't enough to fool us but is close enough to real to make it fucking creepy that forms a dip or "valley" in the graph.

Otherwise, yeah, this is why simplified and/or stylized robots/movies/whatever are able to elicit a positive emotional response while things that try for convincingly realistic but don't quite make it creep a lot of people out.

As for the exact reason your ideas about picking out damaged individuals jive with what I've heard about this before but I can't think of any studies I've seen that examine this thoroughly and say either way...

[Civil War Man]

To sum up darthdavid:



As something becomes more "human" looking, it elicits an increasingly positive response until you hit the valley. I've heard speculation being that the valley results from an ingrained aversion to sick people and corpses, because if you hang out with the diseased and dead, you have an increased chance of joining them.

[Oskuro]

I personally think very drunk people belong in the Valley as well.

I agree. Inebriated people often seem empty to me, like some kind of lifeless automata, their mannerisms an exagerated caricature of the person they used to be. It creeps me to no end.

[darthdavid]

Why was this moved to Other Sci-Fi? This is about a psychological effect of technology...

[Dooey Jo]

The "uncanny valley" seems to be the popular phrase used when describing anything creepy that is also human-like in some way (Thunderbirds? Really? Also check out the internet for more examples of supposedly creepy anime dolls that apparently fall into the category even though they don't look particularly human), and hilariously enough, most of the "evidence" for this effect seems to come from internet film reviews and box office performances of The Polar Express and that Final Fantasy film, as if a 3D animation film can't be shit on its own accord.

[RecklessPrudence]

Well, I remember someone - might have been my psychiatrist, can't remember - saying that he hasn't run into an Autism/Asperger's kid yet, no matter how high-functioning, who even notices the Uncanny Valley - apparantly part of having Autistic Spectrum Disorder is missing that particular subconcious(sp?) trigger - or rather, we don't notice the difference between 'Uncanny Valley' and 'normal'. I've also talked to friends who say that, until they got to know me, they'd feel a similar 'uncomfortable-but-don't-know-why' feeling as when they view things commonly believed to fall in the Uncanny Valley. Apparantly I 'walk wrong', or something.

I also remember reading that still images are a lot less likely to fall prey to Uncanny Valley syndrome, it's apparantly usually something about the movement that triggers the feelings.

[NecronLord]

When I was a toddler I watched Thunderbirds and for some reason it subconciously distrubed me in a profound way, making me cry violently.

Weird. Not that it's aimed at freaking toddlers - you have to be at least five or so to comprehend the whole peril of burning buildings, volcanoes and such, and how awesome the Tracy brothers are for saving people from these in giant rocket ships and contraptions like the Mole. A toddler really couldn't make sense of Thunderbirds at all without having to have 'people getting killed by being crushed and mangled in train crashes' and such explained to them - and that is more likely to be why you cried, too.

Of course the Uncanny Valley predominantly features in The Terminator, especially when the T-800s passing as humans are seriously damaged and revealing their mechanical innards.

Really? I never found that at all creepy. The T-800 cutting his eye out is a bit icky, but the rest of it, nah. That's just battle damage.


Anyway, is this really meant to be in OSF?

[VT-16]

The Thunderbirds and Terminator examples are pretty good. There's something so disturbing about the switch from Arnold the human being to a plastic copy of his head when he's doing repairs to it, coupled with the obvious mechanical "jerky" movements. The dead eyes and lack of detail on the face just creeps me out and severely dates the film. Same thing goes for most of Anderson's puppet shows, I think it's the eyes people take offense to the most in Uncanny Valley cases. If they look at any point "off" and lifeless, that's a sure sign the Valley effect is there, for me.

[Starglider]

Then there is the ASFR community (sourced from alt.sex.fetish.robots the way this site came from asvs), where the uncanny valley is sexy. Seriously, most of the associated stories and art deliberately stress this element.

[NecronLord]

Then there is the ASFR community (sourced from alt.sex.fetish.robots the way this site came from asvs), where the uncanny valley is sexy. Seriously, most of the associated stories and art deliberately stress this element.

Curse you.

I've got to go read this now!

[Starglider]

Curse you. I've got to go read this now!

As I recall, the most common keyword for ASFR stories was 'malfunction', in that fairly realistic sexbots have panels pop open or limbs come off or crash and start speaking robospeak etc, and this is the point in the story that is intended to be the most arousing. I think the second most common theme after that was 'roboticisation'. Do not ask me how I know this.

[Big Orange]

Really? I never found that at all creepy. The T-800 cutting his eye out is a bit icky, but the rest of it, nah. That's just battle damage.

When Cameron was slowly limping about and badly disfigured in the first episode of S2 in TSCC, she was pretty deep in the Valley. And with Thunderbirds what set me off as toddler was when the show's main villain, the Hood, mind melded with his brother and his eyes glowed. The way the scene was directed didn't help either and small children are more easily scared.

Anyway, is this really meant to be in OSF?

It was moved here.

And this is the Actroid Robot, a near lifelike facsimile of a attractive Japanese woman in a latex catsuit *shudder*...

[Junghalli]

I've heard speculation being that the valley results from an ingrained aversion to sick people and corpses, because if you hang out with the diseased and dead, you have an increased chance of joining them.

Another one is that it might have started out as an instinctual aversion to other hominids, who would have fit into that "almost human but not quite" slot. If so, it probably doesn't say good things about how we got along with the cousins.

At some points I've wondered if somewhere in our evolution there might not have been a hominid that preyed on other hominids, and the uncanny valley is a dimly remembered fear of these creatures, such as a pigeon might have for a hawk. I'm lead to wonder about this because you'd think we'd instinctually most fear the things likely to actually eat us, and vaguely humanoid monsters seem to push our buttons in ways that things like big cats don't, which seems really weird (although it's that's just me that reacts that way). Stephen Baxter explores the idea somewhat in Evolution and Manifold: Origin with the "Elf-folk" (rather vicious forest-dwelling Australopithecus offshoots), and Peter Watts also explores it very awesomely with his take on vampires (Homo Sapiens Vampirus).

[NecronLord]

At some points I've wondered if somewhere in our evolution there might not have been a hominid that preyed on other hominids,

We have certainly ate each other on many occasions.

[Starglider]

I'm lead to wonder about this because you'd think we'd instinctually most fear the things likely to actually eat us, and vaguely humanoid monsters seem to push our buttons in ways that things like big cats don't

I find this proposition highly dubious. Neither chimps, orcs or Star Trek aliens seem to be inherently scary, compared to anything else hostile. In science fiction, the most explicitly scary alien designs are always highly nonhuman.

[Wing Commander MAD]

Well, I remember someone - might have been my psychiatrist, can't remember - saying that he hasn't run into an Autism/Asperger's kid yet, no matter how high-functioning, who even notices the Uncanny Valley - apparantly part of having Autistic Spectrum Disorder is missing that particular subconcious(sp?) trigger - or rather, we don't notice the difference between 'Uncanny Valley' and 'normal'. I've also talked to friends who say that, until they got to know me, they'd feel a similar 'uncomfortable-but-don't-know-why' feeling as when they view things commonly believed to fall in the Uncanny Valley. Apparantly I 'walk wrong', or something.

Anyone have any more information regarding this. I am aware of the whole Uncanny Valley concept though I don't think I have really ever experienced it myself. The closest I can recall ever feeling it was the video of those floating robot penguin things that someone posted a story about in SLAM awhile back, and even then the feeling was more of how surreal it was, and that I really want one. I remember a discussion between my mother and a psychiatrist when I was younger regarding the possibility of me having a mild form of Asperger's Syndrome (I have been positively diagnosed with Obssessive Compulsive Disorder), but since the treatments for relatively mild Asperger's cases was so similar to the OCD treatment/meds I am on, it really made no sense to test for it. If anyone knows anything more about this, or has links that someone without a degree in psychiatry can understand it would be appreciated.

[Oskuro]

I'm lead to wonder about this because you'd think we'd instinctually most fear the things likely to actually eat us, and vaguely humanoid monsters seem to push our buttons in ways that things like big cats don't

I find this proposition highly dubious. Neither chimps, orcs or Star Trek aliens seem to be inherently scary, compared to anything else hostile. In science fiction, the most explicitly scary alien designs are always highly nonhuman.

Exibit A: Star-Nosed Mole
Exibit B: Aye-Aye (Whatever that is)
Exibit C: ???
Exibit D:Camel-Spider-Fly?

Uncanny valley makes familiar things feel unnatural and unnerving, but these fuckers are downright creepy. Except this one, it is awesome:



VAMPIRE SQUID! (Vampyroteuthis infernalis, lit. "vampire squid from hell")

[Junghalli]

I find this proposition highly dubious. Neither chimps, orcs or Star Trek aliens seem to be inherently scary, compared to anything else hostile. In science fiction, the most explicitly scary alien designs are always highly nonhuman.

I don't think chimps and Star Trek aliens really fall into the uncanny valley. Chimps are too clearly animal, and Star Trek aliens are for the most part too clearly just funny humans.

I was more thinking along the lines of things like the creature from Alien. Vaguely humanoid monsters give me the creeps in ways that totally inhuman creatures like tigers don't. But like I said, it could be that this is just a personal psychological quirk of mine and not really representative of much of anything.

[Big Orange]

I can imagine primate humanoids like Homo erectus being slightly creepy, but not Neanderthals, and great apes like gorillas are quite charming. They're self-aware, expressive beings with emotions, and we can relate to them.

No, I think with the Uncanny Valley is mainly to do with death, injury, and mental impairment. Anything artificial that looks and acts close to a human but has no mind behind it is intrinsically creepy and akin to watching a re-animated corpse or damaged living person. The Uncanny Valley effect was played up for black laughs in Men In Black when a character played by Vincent D'Onofrio was murdered by a cockroach alien and his rotting skin was used as an unconvincing disguise. The disguised alien (still played by D'Onofrio) moved around in a very disgusting and unnatural way.

[ray245]

Well for one, most of the animations or robots that falls into the uncanny vally usually tend to have ultra-smooth skin.

If their skins have some sort of rough edge to it, with hairs growing on their body like every other humans, maybe we can relate to them better.

[Starglider]

If their skins have some sort of rough edge to it, with hairs growing on their body like every other humans, maybe we can relate to them better.

So you find dolphins and women who shave their legs/armpits/etc scary? Should white people find Asians scary because they have less body hair? Do you find PVC fetish porn more scary than any teen slasher flick?

[NecronLord]

If their skins have some sort of rough edge to it, with hairs growing on their body like every other humans, maybe we can relate to them better.

So you find dolphins and women who shave their legs/armpits/etc scary? Should white people find Asians scary because they have less body hair? Do you find PVC fetish porn more scary than any teen slasher flick?

You know full well what he means, don't tease!

[ray245]

If their skins have some sort of rough edge to it, with hairs growing on their body like every other humans, maybe we can relate to them better.

So you find dolphins and women who shave their legs/armpits/etc scary? Should white people find Asians scary because they have less body hair? Do you find PVC fetish porn more scary than any teen slasher flick?

Given that I'm Asian, I would be more afraid of looking at myself in the mirror as opposed to looking at whites if what you are saying is true.

[Starglider]

So you find dolphins and women who shave their legs/armpits/etc scary? Should white people find Asians scary because they have less body hair? Do you find PVC fetish porn more scary than any teen slasher flick?

You know full well what he means, don't tease!

No, it's a serious question, I mean I like to fantasise about Japanese wearing PVC dolphin costumes, are you saying that other people don't?