The Tipping Point of Humanness

sciencehabit writes "Robert Zemeckis, take note. Using videos that morph the face of a baby or man into a doll, researchers have figured out at what point we stop considering a face human — and start considering it artificial. The ability, the researchers say, is key to our survival, enabling us to quickly determine whether the eyes we're looking at have a mind behind them. It may also explain why so many people hated The Polar Express."

Comments

well...

[Anonymous Coward]

I want a real human-like face for my RealDoll.

Then it'd be less like having sex with a doll and more like real rape.

.

Re:inb4 patent

[gman003]

You didn't even read TFS (the summary), did you?

LOTR

[DubThree]

"It may also explain why so many people hated The Polar Express."
It may also explain why so many people loved the LOTR trilogy (Gollum).

Re:LOTR

[somersault]

I didn't hate The Polar Express, but it wasn't exactly very memorable.

The simulated Jeff Bridges in Tron: Legacy is pretty decent, though they should have put a little more work into getting his mouth to move naturally when speaking. Any single frame looks just like Jeff Bridges sure, but when it's all put together the effect is still a little stiff.

Re:LOTR

[TheLink]

Any single frame looks just like Jeff Bridges sure, but when it's all put together the effect is still a little stiff.

I've noticed a similar issue when watching Nicholas Cage and Keanu Reeves movies.

Re:LOTR

[Moryath]

Actually, the effect would have worked just fine if they'd only used it for Clu. After all, Clu was supposed to be a corrupted, visual simulation.

The problem is, they used the effect for that first "Sam as a kid" scene as well, which just didn't look right.

Re:LOTR

[morgan_greywolf]

I've noticed a similar issue when watching Nicholas Cage and Keanu Reeves movies.

Whoa!

Re:LOTR

[Phoenixlol]

I tried real hard to find flaws in his appearance as I'd heard people complain and came to the same conclusion as you. I found it hardly noticible though. Had it not been pointed out to me that people didn't like the Clu 2 cgi I probably wouldn't have noticed the uncanny valley. Then again, it worked for me in the movie because he WAS a program.

Re:LOTR

[Arancaytar]

Exactly; Gollum was one of the most expressive and real CGI characters I've ever seen.

Re:LOTR

[Mitchell314]

He would've been a better actor if he'd just gotten more memory.

Re:LOTR

[Dan East]

I've watched the Polar Express at least a dozen times (our 2 year old is really into trains at the moment). I think there is a problem with that movie besides just the rendering. Tom Hanks' acting was motion captured for practically every character, including the lead boy. Hanks has very specific mannerisms, and I don't think they were ideal for portrayal by CGI characters. For example, he does this stiff-necked type expression, where he keeps his neck stiff and rotates his whole torso part way towards the subject, then he looks at them out of the corner of his eyes (usually with a sort of bewildered expression). It's a very stiff motion, almost like he's wearing a neck brace. He does that several times in Polar Express, and it simply exacerbates the problem and makes the characters look more rigid and artificial. If anything they should have been slightly more articulate and dynamic to compensate for the negative expectations people would already have over the CGI.

I think it's also an issue of scaling. You can't just take an adult, have them pretend they are a child, scale them down to child-size, and have it look exactly right. The proportions and mechanics are wrong for one thing, besides the fact that kids naturally move and act like kids, and adults naturally act like adults.

Originally Hanks was even going to voice every single character, and voice affects would be applied to change the pitch, etc. In fact, there is a trailer floating around in which Hanks voiced the lead boy's voice, and it sounded horrible. I'm glad someone with enough clout was able to step in and convince Hanks otherwise without stepping on his toes too much. I think Polar Express demonstrated the same problem with the motion capture - everyone is drastically different in their motion and mannerism, and if you use one person to portray a dozen different people, then they will all look unnaturally similar. If your CGI movie has 5 lead roles, you need 5 people to act for motion capture, and 5 people to voice, and they should be cast just like for any "normal" movie. It's that simple.

Re:LOTR

[trum4n]

I think that was the point. He isn't Jeff. He's CLU. He is a simulation.

Re:LOTR

[Guspaz]

I'll agree. It wasn't the visual design that did it for me, it was the animation.

Looking at the CG face, it *looked* perfectly human, but it didn't move very naturally, and that moved it from perfect into uncanny valley for me.

From behind-the-scenes imagery, it looks like they used a multi-camera head rig with visible-light tracking points (not many cameras, though). There are some shortcomings to this sort of system, and it seems like on top of that they over-interpolated the motion data...

From what I've seen of Depth Analysis's MotionScan system (ironically, the first and so far only use of this system is for a videogame), it does a much better job at producing realistic motion. If Tron Legacy had come out a few months later, it's possible that they might have been able to use MotionScan, and avoided the uncanny valley entirely.

Re:LOTR

[countSudoku()]

That's because he was 25% CGI and 75% Andy Serkis.

Re:LOTR

[poena.dare]

After Tron: Legacy I told my son Clu's face was very Oblivionesque. I can't decide if they didn't spend enough money/time working on it or they were simply screwed by being up against the uncanny valley.

Re:LOTR

[somersault]

They also used it for young Jeff at the start of the movie, and in the flashbacks..

Re:LOTR

[DragonWriter]

I think Polar Express demonstrated the same problem with the motion capture - everyone is drastically different in their motion and mannerism, and if you use one person to portray a dozen different people, then they will all look unnaturally similar.

I don't think that's a fundamental problem, I think that's a problem with choosing the wrong actor. There are actors that are very good at creating distinct characters through motion and mannerism, and there are actors that have a more limited palette of motion and mannerism. Either -- depending on how well they portray the feeling of a particular story -- can be great actors at playing one role in a piece, but only the former are likely to be successful playing multiple roles (unless they are supposed to have eerily-similar mannerisms) in the same piece -- whether its live action (as in a live "one man" show, or on film using camera tricks) or done via motion capture.

(The same thing that is true of motion and mannerism is true of voice acting; there are actors that can define distinct characters through voice alone, and actors that can't, and either can be good for one voice role in a piece.)

Re:LOTR

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly; Gollum was one of the most expressive and real CGI characters I've ever seen.

Also, he looked EXACTLY like my recently-deceased father-in-law. No joke.

Re:LOTR

[Jaxoreth]

He would've been a better actor if he'd just gotten more memory.

Unfortunately, Flynn only recreated CLU, not RAM.

Re:LOTR

[91degrees]

I think Gollum had the advantage of not trying to look too human. He's safely on the the side of the valley. Although could have been that the animators put a lot of work into getting the eyes to look alive. The article notes the eyes are important.

Re:LOTR

[Opportunist]

I hope and pray for you that your wife is adopted. Else, what I heard about DNA isn't too reassuring.

Re:LOTR

[iamhassi]

"simulated Jeff Bridges in Tron: Legacy is pretty decent"

Compared to? I thought it looked horribly fake compared to a young Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2009's Terminator Salvation

I was expecting young Jeff Bridges to be of similar quality and he was not. Instead I was treated to special effects similar to 2007's Beowulf.

Which isn't to say those are bad but you're talking 4 years in CGI, there should have been a night and day difference. Beowulf was good for 2007. Tron: Legacy was not good for 2010. Some scenes were downright embarrassing, I have a feeling they'll clean it up some more before DVD and BD release.

Re:LOTR

[iamhassi]

But Gollum wasn't human, he didn't have to have all the human characteristics we expect. Same with Avatar, not human so we're not looking for certain things.

Re:LOTR

[VincentFreeman]

I've noticed a similar issue when watching Nicholas Cage and Keanu Reeves movies.

Nicolas Cage is one of the greatest actors of ALL TIME.

Re:LOTR

[Dabido]

Any single frame looks just like Jeff Bridges sure, but when it's all put together the effect is still a little stiff.

So they made Jeff Bridges act like Keanu Reeves?

Re:LOTR

[Anonymous Coward]

We're still looking for facial expressions that convey human emotion. Gollum had oversized eyes, but his face was human and moved like that of a human.

Re:LOTR

[somersault]

Compared to real life.

Like I said, the still shots are pretty much perfect. Even the moving shots, as long as he's not talking. The first few times I watched the trailers I didn't know that it was CG at all. When I found out it was Jeff Bridges in the original I assumed that the younger version was just him wearing makeup.

From the effort that they put into the plot, I don't think they really cared much about this movie and are just doing it as a cheap cash-in. So I doubt they'll clean anything up before the release. The movie itself was a real disappointment to my inner geek.

Re:LOTR

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe that was intentional?

Survival?

[TheL0ser]

Maybe survival, but wouldn't you think that anything registering "close enough" wasn't too dangerous to spend more time looking at, and anything that wasn't human would be immediately recognizable? I don't think anyone's going to mistake a cheetah for a person. One says "possible friend" and the other says "you're dead before you realize it's a cheetah"

Re:Survival?

[chemicaldave]

I understand your confusion, but I think the point is that being able to easily differentiate between "real" looking and "not real" attests to our fine visual perception and quickness in determination. Compare this to other mammals who might not differentiate threats from non-threats so quickly.

Re:Survival?

[Sonny Yatsen]

There's a brain disorder that causes people to be unable to recognize human faces. I wonder if the uncanny valley effect works on them, because clearly they are missing that survival function that you noted.

Re:Survival?

[avilliers]

The study has nothing to do with the point you are making. There is no real world situation where we encounter Polar Express level-of-competence simulacra and our life is threatened if we make an incorrect decision. Claiming "survival," let alone it being "key" to survival, is sloppy thinking by researchers who have apparently internalized some evolutionary pyschology memes.

This ability is presumably a side effect of other valuable mental skills, such as the ability to read facial expression and identify similar looking faces. Which is amazing and the subject of not much study, but no what this article is about and not what the experiment measured.

Re:Survival?

[TheLink]

Thing is I looked at the pics in the article and while the shinier/glintier eyes make them look more human, a significant part of what made the faces look "more/less human" to me was the skin tone/texture. The ones on the right looked more plasticky/waxy.

Re:Survival?

[MartinSchou]

This ability is presumably a side effect of other valuable mental skills, such as the ability to read facial expression and identify similar looking faces.

True or not, this hypothesis does bring another experiment to my mind - at what point do people suffering from prosopagnosia not consider a face a face anymore? I.e. the same experiment but conducted with people who cannot recognize faces.

Re:Survival?

[Phoenixlol]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosopagnosia in case anyone is interested.
"Prosopagnosia (sometimes known as face blindness) is a disorder of face perception where the ability to recognize faces is impaired, while the ability to recognize other objects may be relatively intact. The term originally referred to a condition following acute brain damage, but recently a congenital form of the disorder has been proposed, which may be inherited by about 2.5% of the population. The specific brain area usually associated with prosopagnosia is the fusiform gyrus.
Few successful therapies have so far been developed for affected people, although individuals often learn to use 'piecemeal' or 'feature by feature' recognition strategies. This may involve secondary clues such as clothing, hair color, body shape, and voice. Because the face seems to function as an important identifying feature in memory, it can also be difficult for people with this condition to keep track of information about people, and socialize normally with others."

Re:Survival?

[Moryath]

There is no real world situation where we encounter Polar Express level-of-competence simulacra and our life is threatened if we make an incorrect decision

Today, yes.

In evolutionary past... there are lots of illnesses that cause people's minds to degrade (animal minds, too). The most common one that comes to mind is rabies, which also makes people and animals move in a somewhat zombielike, jerky fashion.

In the modern world, identifying a rabid animal isn't quite as needed, since vaccinations have helped to slow the spread of the disease via "herd immunity" even to the "wild", feral animals that live in many cities and urban areas. Go back a century or more, on the other hand, and identifying it early - in livestock, working dogs, and wild animals - was a much more necessary skill. Hell, identifying an infected food animal is important so as not to eat it.

And then there's African trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness), leprosy, Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob, transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (aka "kuru", "laughing sickness"), and other "prion" diseases.

Re:Survival?

[StikyPad]

The ability to identify similar faces is important for survival -- the survival of your genes.

Re:Survival?

[icebike]

Define "similar faces".

Re:Survival?

[icebike]

None of these illness you mention has anything to do with recognizing human faces and distinguishing them from animals.

Nor does the most rabid or schizophrenic person look anything other than human.

You are conflating unusual, illness-induced behavior with the purported claim in this article, that distinguishing human from seemingly human was a key to survival.

For every
      "you could look in his eyes and tell he was crazy"
there are dozens and dozens of
      "he was the nicest neighbor and couldn't have possibly cut up his wife and buried her in the back yard"

Re:Survival?

[icebike]

Maybe survival, but wouldn't you think that anything registering "close enough" wasn't too dangerous to spend more time looking at, and anything that wasn't human would be immediately recognizable? I don't think anyone's going to mistake a cheetah for a person. One says "possible friend" and the other says "you're dead before you realize it's a cheetah"

I was thinking the same thing.

Unless they were watching "The Walking Dead" or "Fringe" on the day they wrote that, I simply see no reason to make such a claim.

There has never been a time when people needed to recognize another animal as dangerous but at the same time run the risk of mistaking it for human.

Similarly, there has historically been far more risk to humans from other humans, (some indistinguishable from one's own clan) than from any animals.

So perhaps they meant it the other way around; suggesting you could safely ignore the animals staring at you from the bushes, but if you notice another human staring from the bushes you likely to get a spear or arrow in your ribs.

Re:Survival?

[Troed]

The severity of my facial blindness is still to be studied in a laboratory environment, but I's around where I sometimes cannot follow the plot in a movie since two main characters might look "the same" to me just because the cues I normally use, facial hair, hair style, movement etc are too similar in some of the scenes.

With that said, I'd happily go along with "67%" in the videos from the article, and thus there doesn't seem to be a difference at least for me.

Re:Survival?

[StikyPad]

It's hard to define, which is why computers aren't very good at it. Nonetheless, we can generally see physical characteristics of ourselves in both our parents and our offspring. If "your child" doesn't look like you, there's a good chance you've been cuckolded.

Re:Survival?

[budgenator]

the Cambridge Face Memory Test was an eyeopener for me.

Re:Survival?

[c 0xFF]

Just like most white people can't tell Chinese people apart, those with prosopanosia can't tell anybody apart.

At least, that's what I was told once. It makes sense to me that the underlying brain mechanisms could be related.

Re:Survival?

[MadUndergrad]

The point GP is making is that many of those diseases cause people or animals to act/move/look slightly "off", and noticing that was key to avoiding them and avoiding infection. The rabid person doesn't look normal. It's not so much a physical thing, it's a behavior thing which still plays into "appearance". It's perfectly natural that a revulsion reaction would be an evolutionary defense for this.

Likewise computer animations are often slightly "off" in the same way - the muscle groups may not work together like they should, or reactions may not be what we expect, or slower than usual.

Re:Survival?

[hawthorne]

Yes, it works.

I can't tell my kids from the others in their class without help if they aren't dressed as they were the last time I saw them, but still have a cutoff point in the videos where the face is no longer real.

I have landmarks for the people I know that let me identify them - woe betide me if somebody has a new haircut, or gets new glasses.

Re:Survival?

[BiggerIsBetter]

There is no real world situation where we encounter Polar Express level-of-competence simulacra and our life is threatened if we make an incorrect decision. Claiming "survival," let alone it being "key" to survival, is sloppy thinking by researchers who have apparently internalized some evolutionary pyschology memes.

Take a look around wider society today and you'll see lots of people you don't want to interact with, based on their eyes and facial characteristics. There are druggies or folks who just got unlucky with their parents, people who when you look at them don't seem to be looking back. Or if they are, there's very little comprehension going on behind the eyes. Seeing this can be a survival decision... ask any city dweller or someone from the bad part of town. I can think of several who walk around and interact as well as any cartoon character, but when you look at their faces you know they're not all there, and they're big enough, tattooed enough, and (gang)patched enough to make your day get very bad very quickly.

And FWIW, it's certainly a procreation-related decision for the ladies who presumably want the best genes they can get hold of, so I think the researchers do have a valid point.

Re:Survival?

[Anonymous Coward]

Note that your second quote is usually closely preceded/followed by "he always kept to himself", meaning few people got a chance to really look him in the eye. Not to mention that those examples are often actively engaged in blending in with the normals around them, except perhaps for the ones (specifically like your 2nd example seems to be) who just suddenly snap. That's not the same context as recognizing persons who are succumbing to some kind of potentially contagious or dangerous physical ailment.

The point of the article seemed more to be that distinguishing "probably OK" humans from "something ain't right" humans would have been an aid to survival. And "something ain't right" might have been more than just this for our ancestors 30,000 years ago. If we could somehow plot an uncanny valley for them, we might find that people from a distant village wouldn't have fit their sense of "human". Going back farther, maybe Cro-Magnons evolved such a trait in response to the presence of Neanderthals.

- T

Re:Survival?

[Slur]

That's one reason why TRON Legacy's Clu face didn't work perfectly. The skin was a little too perfect, and there were none of the changes in skin hue you see in a human face as it moves. I'd like to see more tests on what kinds of motion seem unreal versus those that seem genuine. I think with humans, it's the way we really do balance our muscles and the weight of our limbs and torso. If we lean to the left we have to compensate with tension on the right, and so on. Our muscles and nerves are making intelligent decisions every millisecond, whereas computer-animated beings have no points of hesitation in their motion. A lot of the missing Jazz could be inserted with algorithms that take these weight-adjustments into account. As for facial realism, similar things apply. The individual character has a guiding aspect in how the face and eyes move, but the body is doing its own thing. I feel like Avatar really caught on to these aspects of motion and weight, and would make a good basis for the more canny end of the spectrum in any study.

Re:Survival?

[Carnildo]

There's a brain disorder that causes people to be unable to recognize human faces. I wonder if the uncanny valley effect works on them, because clearly they are missing that survival function that you noted.

I can tell you from personal experience that the Uncanny Valley effect works just fine. It's not so much an "inability to recognize human faces" as an inability to distinguish between faces, especially similar-looking faces. For example, I have no trouble telling that Barack Obama is not the same person as Bill Clinton, but telling Bush, Sr. from Bush, Jr. is nearly impossible.

It's part of why I prefer anime, comics, and other drawn entertainment over live-action: the reduced detail of the medium makes it hard to draw large numbers of distinctive faces, so the artists tend to load up on secondary identification cues such as hairstyle or preferred clothing -- things that are easy for me to identify.

Re:Survival?

[TapeCutter]

"There is no real world situation where we encounter Polar Express level-of-competence simulacra and our life is threatened if we make an incorrect decision. Claiming "survival," let alone it being "key" to survival, is sloppy thinking by researchers who have apparently internalized some evolutionary pyschology memes."

Of course cavemen didn't see animated pictures what they saw is what people today see, random things that look like faces, people, animals, (ever jumped at a tree branch moving around outside a window at night time?). The ability to percive a real threat from very subtle visual clues while at the same time not jumping at every shadow is an evolutionary advantage which I suspect most mammals posses.

Re:Survival?

[TapeCutter]

It's got nothing to do with mistaking animal for humans. It's about distinguishing real faces from the imaginary faces our mind creates out of random objects (clouds was given as an example). ie: It's about knowing when to run and when to say "OMG, for a moment I thought that big rock was a bear".

Re:Survival?

[icebike]

It's got nothing to do with mistaking animal for humans. It's about distinguishing real faces from the imaginary faces our mind creates out of random objects (clouds was given as an example). ie: It's about knowing when to run and when to say "OMG, for a moment I thought that big rock was a bear".

There is no penalty for running away from a rock.

Birds do this all the time. Their instinct is to fly first and look sheepish later.

The article, if you bothered to read it, was indeed make the claim that distinguishing human faces from animal was a key survival mechanism.

Re:Survival?

[TapeCutter]

The penalty is lost energy and opportunity - too much curiosity will kill the cat, too little will starve it to death. As for birds, if you go fed some pigeons in the park you can readily observe they do not fly first and look later, they often duck down slightly (ready to take off) and then change their mind and go for the food. Even when responding to an alarm call they don't just flap away in a random direction.

Re:Survival?

[eugene ts wong]

That was an eyeopener for me, too. Now that I think about it, I tend to rely on clothing and hair to remember people. For the test, I honestly thought that I was about average, or better. I thought that I only got a few wrong, but apparently not.

Out of 72 faces, you correctly identified 49.

In other words, you got 68% correct.

Re:Survival?

[budgenator]

I only got 31 right, you'd think that you'd get 18 by simply random guessing

Re:Survival?

[eugene ts wong]

Good point.

That being said, sometimes I wonder if it is not good to give ourselves that kind of information. They say that the results don't guarantee anything, so it might only cause unnecessary concern.

Re:Survival?

[Transaction7]

You got this right. What nobody has worked with here, that should have been done before the Supreme Court weighed in without such necessary evidence using its own standards, is how this interplays with the Court's misbegotten ruling that "virtual" child pornography depicting severe abuse [as they held earlier regarding commercial nude lap dancing, etc.] is protected by the First Amendment,no matter how indistinguishable from real, un-retouched photographs of real chnildren, though they concede that real child porn is not. By the way, will some of you actual or alleged evolutionary biologists please explain how, in current evolutionary theory, the ability to distinguish something that, as a matter of invention and refinement, would not have existed, much less been an existential problem, 150 years ago, from another picture painted or otherwise produced, much less from a living being, would have had any occasion to develop at all, much less how it could and would have developed during this short time frame since invention of modern photography, etc.?

Fight back, my fellow hoomans

[digitalsushi]

This is EXACTLY what the machine has been tailoring for THOUSANDS OF YEARS (yes capital letters GET YOUR ATTENTION as they are the BASTION PILLARS OF TRUTH)-- Scientists for thousands of years have been performing careful CAD manipulations in an attempt to brainwash the common masses (that means you and me but not your grandboss).

Folks, (I call you folks because it establishes a connection between us as meatspace), You are being persuaded to analyze why artificial human faces are creepy, but the seedy underbelly is that we are REALLY being asked to publicly verify that they are getting CLOSER to HUMANOID PERFECTION. In a nutshell, the people that paid slashdot 5 million bucks for this link are ensuring that YOU (second person you) are ever so slightly just a little eroticized by these computer generated faces. And with that slippery slope comes the coleslaw wrestling of digital whoredom.

Folks, watch out for a nefarious bleak future where computer generated faces are the new future. Because before you know it, you will roll over in bed and that computer face will be YOUR WIFE.

Thanks for listening, and you all have a Merry Christmas. Now get back to running the clock down on your last day before a three day scotch melee. (I started mine a day early)

Re:Fight back, my fellow hoomans

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it nag less than my current wife? If so, I might be willing to trade.

Re:Fight back, my fellow hoomans

[Ornlu]

Now get back to running the clock down on your last day before a three day scotch melee

Thats the best description of today's work I've ever heard.

Re:Fight back, my fellow hoomans

[mcgrew]

Scientists for thousands of years have been performing careful CAD manipulations

How could scientists have been performing Computer Aided Drawings for thousands of years when the computer is less than a hundred years old?

Anyone who "attempts to brainwash the common masses" is NOT a scientist. WTF?

Now get back to running the clock down on your last day before a three day scotch melee. (I started mine a day early)

Oh, that explains it. I thought you were just trolling, sorry, my bad. If you were trying to make a joke, EPIC FAIL. This is slashdot. We're nerds. You're going to have to do a hell of a lot better than that.

Re:Fight back, my fellow hoomans

[Culture20]

Folks, watch out for a nefarious bleak future where computer generated faces are the new future. Because before you know it, you will roll over in bed and that computer face will be YOUR WIFE. Thanks for listening, and you all have a Merry Christmas.

It's a Christmas Miracle! I'm getting Married!

Re:Fight back, my fellow hoomans

[ocdscouter]

To be fair, some nerds have lower standards than others. Not I, of course, but still...

Re:Fight back, my fellow hoomans

[aiht]

<rant/> ... three day scotch melee. (I started mine a day early)

You sure did! :D

Re:Fight back, my fellow hoomans

[badkarmadayaccount]

Me too, yay!

Uncanny valley

[schmidt349]

Much as I enjoyed Tron: Legacy, young Flynn/Clu was just wrong enough to seriously creep me out. I think it was because some parts of his face didn't move right when he talked and smiled (cheeks and eyes).

Re:Uncanny valley

[Sonny Yatsen]

For me, it was his mouth that seemed way off. Somehow, the motion of the lips moving either seems to be off-sync with the sound, or exaggeratedly tight-lipped.

Re:Uncanny valley

[hellfire]

Although the movie wasn't a tour de force, I thought the "creepiness" of Clu's facial expressions was actually a plus, because he was supposed to be creepy, he's the bad guy! The theme was the attempt by Flynn at perfection, and you can see that perfection isn't perfect in Clu's face. However, it probably would have been a better idea to use makeup and a little digital retouching in the initial scenes for young Flynn. Obviously Tron: Legacy was trying to show what current technology could do compared to old technology, but outside the grid, use the real world technology to show real life rather than CGI, it would have been better.

Yo mamma's so fat

[Anonymous Coward]

Yo mamma's so fat, the recursive function calculating her mass density had a stack overflow.

yes

[Crociere Last Minute]

ciao by the

The Polar Express

[J-1000]

It has a few obnoxious scenes, but seeing The Polar Express in IMAX 3D was one of my favorite movie experiences. They really nailed the 3D aspect of it.

Missing dimension

[ColoradoAuthor]

Time. Consider our everyday conversations: "Ooh, he's creepy. He keeps looking at my stomach." "Look me in the eye and tell me that." "Watch that customer in the Jewelry department--he's got shifty eyes."

Examining static images of faces has limited (some, but limited) value. When we look at eyes, don't we immediately calculate *what they're looking at*? Much of our assessment of the character and intentions of people and animals seems to be based on how the eyes move.

Re:Missing dimension

[Anonymous Coward]

Interestingly enough, the concept of the Uncanny Valley has two curves associated with it: one for static images or non-moving objects, and one for movies or animate objects. The two curves are similar, but the amplitude on the moving image curve is much greater. To your point, a non-moving corpse is not nearly as frightening as a moving one.

Re:Missing dimension

[Anonymous Coward]

And don't forget the good old "something just isn't right about him". And it often has to do with the eyes - fetal alcohol syndrome, too much inbreeding and various mental disorders. Sure they are not ALL bad people, but in a dark alley, go with the odds...

Re:Missing dimension

[OglinTatas]

"Ooh, he's creepy. He keeps looking at my stomach."

I'm actually looking at your breasts. You might consider wearing a bra once in a while

Re:Missing dimension

[seebs]

I think that's probably the case for most people.

Not only am I autistic, I have an autistic friend. I got curious at one point and asked someone who knows us both whether my autististic friend makes eye contact. Apparently she doesn't. I never knew. (And I'd say we go out to lunch or dinner together maybe twice a week, whereupon we chat and/or play with electronic gizmos.)

Not "quite" human.

[Anonymous Coward]

Robert Zemeckis, take note. Using videos that morph the face of a baby or man into a doll, researchers have figured out at what point we stop considering a face human--and start considering it artificial.

So what does this say about managers?

Or Beowulf

[benwiggy]

It may also explain why Beowulf was a sack of shit.

However, it doesn't explain why you can feel strong empathy with the characters in Finding Nemo; and also why you find the facial expressions that pass for acting in some soaps so unhuman as to pass for furniture.

Re:Or Beowulf

[Anonymous Coward]

Because Finding Nemo's characters are meant to be comic like Goofy or Bambi; you can feel compassion for those characters regardless of what they look like. But if something is meant to look human and fails, it's just creepy.

Re:Or Beowulf

[Speare]

However, it doesn't explain why you can feel strong empathy with the characters in Finding Nemo

Scott McCloud has a fairly good chapter on this in his book, Understanding Comics. He demonstrates drawing-space as a three-variabled continuum, a triangle. It's been a while, but I think the points were something like complexity, abstractness, realism. But the crux of the matter was, the simpler the approximation, the more we could associate ourselves in that role, so it became more emotionally immersive. Dory and Nemo's dad were very simplified, abstractified, so we related better.

Re:Or Beowulf

[natehoy]

Precisely.

I thought it was an interesting retelling, but every few seconds my mind was switching back and forth between "I'm watching a cartoon" and "I'm watching actors". It was too close to the human/non-human line for me, and I found it vaguely disturbing. In the end, it made it a far less enjoyable experience than if they had just gone with cartoon characters.

I think Beowulf nailed the deepest part of the "uncanny valley" almost perfectly.

Re:Or Beowulf

[thasmudyan]

Exactly. We don't have any problem seeing emotional life-likeness in even very schematic comic characters, plush animals, and occasionally even objects that don't have a face at all. I'm willing to bet if tomorrow very strange aliens descended from the sky, having totally un-earthlike features, we would still connect with them emotionally without a problem, because we can learn to interpret non-human reactions and features. Yet somehow human characters that are "not quite right" irritate us.

Since even clearly perceived falseness doesn't trip us up at all when interacting with non-human characters, I hypothesize that the uncanny valley could actually be caused by a visual subsystem that deals with recognizing sickness and death in humans, triggering an involuntary repulsion that then is rationalized after the brain realizes it has this reaction mainly when looking at dolls. People do appear to have associations with death as they jokingly described the Polar Express as something reminiscent of a zombie movie. This is probably also the reason why zombie movies (where the undead don't look like live people with excessive makeup) are so effective. That legless zombie girl in "The Walking Dead" pilot creeped me out to no end...

Re:Or Beowulf

[countSudoku()]

That's a great example; even a great story can't hide shit animation. It's why I always get the Pixar movies for my daughter; they care enough to spend shitloads of rendering time on their content, they even invented the best tools in the industry to generate it with, and you know the story won't leave you flat. It's why I avoid any of the DreamWorks animations; shit animation from people who could give a crap about the art form, and lack-luster stories that do leave a lot to the imagination.

Re:Or Beowulf

[BotnetZombie]

On the contrary, it exactly explains why you would like Finding Nemo and not Beowulf. The drawings in the former are colorful, with big expressions and not like reality at all. In other words, not anywhere near the uncanny valley. Beowulf characters are firmly in that valley, making you not like them.

Re:Or Beowulf

[tixxit]

Animators spend a lot of time and effort making animals and inanimate objects more human. Animators are great at boiling down human emotions, expressions, gestures, etc. into the most basic elements, while still being recognizable as such. It takes a great deal of skill in a very competitive field.

I'd say a better analogy would simply be cats and dogs. Very different; they don't smile, or laugh, but for the most part, neither have too much trouble getting their basic emotions across to their owners.

Re:Or Beowulf

[couchslug]

"But the crux of the matter was, the simpler the approximation, the more we could associate ourselves in that role,"

Peanuts. Calvin and Hobbes, xkcd.

Re:Or Beowulf

[tabrnaker]

I think this has more to do with the Cute Beauty continuum. Cute things are mainly undefined, the energy doesn't have set pathways and we *enjoy* watching the undefined entity struggle to find the way. If you want to make big money selling *cute* toys, just remember undefinied(usually circular) and very expressive (the more free energy, the more exagerated it can move). Beauty on the other hand is energy moving along the most energy efficient pathways, which will carve away all the baby fat, revealing the structure of your movements. Now, most humans can't move their own faces properly to make themselves beautiful, how are they supposed to do it for CG?

Re:Or Beowulf

[painandgreed]

"But the crux of the matter was, the simpler the approximation, the more we could associate ourselves in that role,"

Peanuts. Calvin and Hobbes, xkcd.

Or World of Warcraft. I have seen several gaming articles talk about how WoW graphics, while not as realistic as other games, hold up better and for longer because they are more cartoon like. Years later, a cartoon still looks like a cartoon, but what was realistic graphics are noticably dated.

Re:Or Beowulf

[adamofgreyskull]

"But the crux of the matter was, the simpler the approximation, the more we could associate ourselves in that role,"

Peanuts(...)

No. Really!

Re:Or Beowulf

[phantomfive]

I'm willing to bet if tomorrow very strange aliens descended from the sky, having totally un-earthlike features, we would still connect with them emotionally without a problem, because we can learn to interpret non-human reactions and features.

I've really been working on this with fish. I haven't figured it out yet, though. You should try, I'd like to see what someone else comes up with. (and don't say fish don't have limbic systems; while true, they still have desires and impulses etc).

Cindy Mccain anyone?

[mcsqueak]

I was wondering why I was so creeped out by every picture of her during the 2008 election. Those eye... wowzers. She looked like an android from a movie.

You can't assess character

[elucido]

You can't access character by watching a persons eyes or body language. That doesn't stop people from trying of course.

Re:You can't assess character

[Anonymous Coward]

...said the unapologetic boob-starer.

Re:You can't assess character

[Anonymous Coward]

Citation please? Or could you at least explain why you feel that way? Or do you expect us to take your word as an axiom?

Re:You can't assess character

[jfengel]

Or as Shakespeare put it, "There's no art/To find the mind's construction in the face." That quote leaped to mind when I read your post.

Re:You can't assess character

[mcgrew]

Did you mean "assess"? Otherwise your statement makes little sense to me. If you did, some people are REALLY good at assessing the average person's character by watching body language. I'm not good at it, but some are.

Of course, nobody can assess a sociopath''s character except a trained psychologist administering a test for the disorder.

Re:You can't assess character

[Shotgun]

But you can assess intentions. I wrestled in high school. Later as a coach, I could confidently instruct wrestlers to watch the opponents eyes, both in order to get an idea of their intentions and to never broadcast your move.

Someone's intentions give hints to their character.

Re:You can't assess character

[Arancaytar]

You can assess behavior and intent, however, which is much more important in the short term.

Re:You can't assess character

[TheLink]

You may not be able to do it 100%, but are you sure you can't do better than random?

Re:You can't assess character

[Anonymous Coward]

...who stands WAY to close to you.

Re:You can't assess character

[morgan_greywolf]

You can't access character by watching a persons eyes or body language. That doesn't stop people from trying of course

No, but you can assess what they're thinking and whether or not what they're saying is truthful. That can play a part in assessing their character if interaction occurs repeatedly and over a longer period of time.

Re:You can't assess character

[countertrolling]

Of course, nobody can assess a sociopath''s character except a trained psychologist administering a test for the disorder.

Not necessarily so. The desire for political office, or any authority for that matter, is a pretty sure sign.

Re:You can't assess character

[tabrnaker]

Well, obviously you can't. Don't try to speak for the rest of us.

Just the thought that how a person chooses to interact with the world around them says nothing about them is totally illogical.

What you are falling prey to is that we cannot see what we do not understand. A properly trained fighter knows that a specific change in body weight means something will come flying at his head, most people would be on the floor before their brain even processes the weight shift as significant.

of course, not all fighters are equal. it's a subtle distinction between how much weight shift i need to kick to the head or the body, both dependent on how much force is used in conjuction with the flexibility and movability of the leg in question.

Re:You can't assess character

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't know many sociopaths, do you? They do not all want positions of power.

Re:You can't assess character

[countertrolling]

You don't read too good, do you? I didn't say all sociopaths want power...

Re:You can't assess character

[Anonymous Coward]

In Fencing I find it MUCH better to watch the center of the chest of the opponent(even when you can see the eyes well). I can much more accurately determin a fein from the incoming attack even on somewhat more experienced fencers from this location(about the bottom of the sternum, and watching the area).

Re:You can't assess character

[budgenator]

That's because most Autistics were burnt at the stake in Shakespeare's time.

Re:You can't assess character

[nabsltd]

You can't access character by watching a persons eyes or body language.

What do you mean by "character"?

If you mean their general morals, how they conduct themselves, etc., then you're probably right, at least for limited observation.

But, if you mean their "current" character, like whether they intend to rob you, or if they are lying, then you most certainly can "access [sic] character" by watching them.

Re:You can't assess character

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't, but people do. Once I was told that I make people uncomfortable by looking into their eyes for too long and it would be better to glance away from time to time. People found me too intense. I made an effort to do so and the effect on people is noticeable, they are more relaxed around me now.

So, if you're not good at dealing with people, it's worth knowing these things as a couple of minor behaviour changes could make things a lot easier for you.

Re:You can't assess character

[Anonymous Coward]

A square is a four-sided shape. Not all four-sided shapes are squares.

Re:You can't assess character

[ockegheim]

Eyes can trump boobs in my case. Some of the gazillion girls I've been attracted to over the years I've liked for their intelligence, which shows through the eyes (and which I can spot in less than a second). Then weeks later I've noticed with surprise that they're quite impressively built. And it's not like I don't think boobs are wonderful...

Re:You can't assess character

[elucido]

But you can assess intentions. I wrestled in high school. Later as a coach, I could confidently instruct wrestlers to watch the opponents eyes, both in order to get an idea of their intentions and to never broadcast your move.

Someone's intentions give hints to their character.

No it doesn't. Unless you know what causes them to have those intentions it tells you nothing. Also the non telegraphed punch should be the first thing any fighter learns.

Re:You can't assess character

[elucido]

You can't access character by watching a persons eyes or body language. That doesn't stop people from trying of course

No, but you can assess what they're thinking and whether or not what they're saying is truthful. That can play a part in assessing their character if interaction occurs repeatedly and over a longer period of time.

Not necessarily. Anybody who knows how to act can know to wear a mask.

Re:You can't assess character

[elucido]

Well, obviously you can't. Don't try to speak for the rest of us.

Just the thought that how a person chooses to interact with the world around them says nothing about them is totally illogical.

What you are falling prey to is that we cannot see what we do not understand. A properly trained fighter knows that a specific change in body weight means something will come flying at his head, most people would be on the floor before their brain even processes the weight shift as significant.

of course, not all fighters are equal. it's a subtle distinction between how much weight shift i need to kick to the head or the body, both dependent on how much force is used in conjuction with the flexibility and movability of the leg in question.

Nobody can. It's science. You think you can but it's just a subconscious gut feeling, it's not based on anything factual until you observe their behavior to find out what they actually will do.

Just their body language, facial expressions or eye movements, all of that can and will be faked when you deal with the elite level sociopaths or just anybody with above average intelligence and social skills. Read art of war.

Re:You can't assess character

[elucido]

You can't access character by watching a persons eyes or body language.

What do you mean by "character"?

If you mean their general morals, how they conduct themselves, etc., then you're probably right, at least for limited observation.

But, if you mean their "current" character, like whether they intend to rob you, or if they are lying, then you most certainly can "access [sic] character" by watching them.

By character I'm saying I profile people on behavior alone. Not how they dress, how they look, or what they tend to say, but on their actual behavior when shit gets "real".

Re:You can't assess character

[elucido]

You can't, but people do. Once I was told that I make people uncomfortable by looking into their eyes for too long and it would be better to glance away from time to time. People found me too intense. I made an effort to do so and the effect on people is noticeable, they are more relaxed around me now.

So, if you're not good at dealing with people, it's worth knowing these things as a couple of minor behaviour changes could make things a lot easier for you.

You'll see what happens to those people. Any fighter who has not read the art of war, cannot claim to have social skills in any competitive context. Any fighter who has read art of war will know for certain that what people project is an illusion, that people wear masks, and that first impression is usually meaningless when dealing with an experienced actor.

I'm saying people who rely on gut feelings don't have real social skills, they have social emotions. Just like people who decide right and wrong on gut emotions don't have real ethics, they just have gut feelings.

Re:You can't assess character

[elucido]

That's because most Autistics were burnt at the stake in Shakespeare's time.

Get your facts straight. Autism is not the same as Aspergers. Autistic individuals are disabled. Aspergers individuals are peculiar and aloof.

While psychology is irrelevant in the context of social interaction because "normal" people don't really exist, there are people who have superior social skills. Those who have superior social skills read and analyze people well. The ability to read a group in a room to determine which ones are vulnerable and to what, and to decide which ones have predatory instincts and which do not, and which ones are likely to behave in a certain way or not.

None of the deep level analysis is based on what position they cross their legs or whether they look at a persons eyes or breasts. Of course any guy is going to look at a womans breasts but this wont tell you if the guy is likely to be a rapist or not, this wont tell you if the guy has predatory instincts or not, the only way to find that out is to actually analyze his behavior over a period of time to determine just what type of predator he is likely to be.

Re:You can't assess character

[elucido]

Eyes can trump boobs in my case. Some of the gazillion girls I've been attracted to over the years I've liked for their intelligence, which shows through the eyes (and which I can spot in less than a second). Then weeks later I've noticed with surprise that they're quite impressively built. And it's not like I don't think boobs are wonderful...

You can learn everything about a woman by the shape of her boobs, why bother looking her in the eyes?

Re:You can't assess character

[tabrnaker]

No, YOU can't. It's science, you just don't know any of it.

Re:You can't assess character

[elucido]

No, YOU can't. It's science, you just don't know any of it.

If it's science then acting is also science, the science of fooling people who study body language.

Re:You can't assess character

[elucido]

You can assess behavior and intent, however, which is much more important in the short term.

If you could assess behavior at a glance, you'd never be conned right? Why didn't it work on Bernie Madoff?

Re:You can't assess character

[rdnetto]

You can't access character by watching a persons eyes or body language. That doesn't stop people from trying of course.

But you can assess character by observing a person's interactions with others, which is most evident in their body language and tone as well as what they actually say.
Personality, on the other hand can be inferred from appearance because it is often reflected in their style and choice of clothing (or lack there of). To quote Oscar Wilde, "Only shallow people are unimpressed by appearances."

Re:You can't assess character

[budgenator]

Actually there is a very good chance that Asperger's syndrome will be dropped from the ICD-11 as a separate diagnosis, right now in ICD-10 the biggest difference between Childhood Autism, F84.0, and Asperger's F84.5 is "no general delay or retardation in language or in cognitive development." and it is notable that a delay doesn't imply or exclude a permanent retardation of a skill set. Most clinicians have been using the spectrum paradigm for a long time rather than discrete diagnosis.
Still given the rate that Auties and Aspies are bullied by schoolmates in our now enlightened society, I'll stand by most being burned at the stake in Shakespeare's time.

Re:You can't assess character

[Anonymous Coward]

But I think Shakespeare was having Duncan say the opposite of what you seem to be implying. Duncan was commenting that the previous Thane of Cawdor had a good face, yet was of sinister intention. He is saying there is no way of judging a man's thoughts from his face (can't judge a book by its cover). He makes the same mistake with Macbeth.

Re:You can't assess character

[elucido]

Actually there is a very good chance that Asperger's syndrome will be dropped from the ICD-11 as a separate diagnosis, right now in ICD-10 the biggest difference between Childhood Autism, F84.0, and Asperger's F84.5 is "no general delay or retardation in language or in cognitive development." and it is notable that a delay doesn't imply or exclude a permanent retardation of a skill set. Most clinicians have been using the spectrum paradigm for a long time rather than discrete diagnosis.
Still given the rate that Auties and Aspies are bullied by schoolmates in our now enlightened society, I'll stand by most being burned at the stake in Shakespeare's time.

I don't think they are the same. I think Aspergers is like ADHD. It's not really a disease but people are calling it one. I think Autism is a legitimate disease. With Aspergers theres no difference in brain function, until they can show via FMRI that the brain of someone with Aspergers is different I'm not convinced.

As far as which people got killed during Shakespears time I think that had more to do with IQ and with the individual than with personality.

In some environments Aspergers will keep you alive, in other environments it will get you killed. I can't say the same about Autism because the difference is with Autism a person doesn't have the capability to use ordinary language skills while a person with Aspergers has the capability but does not feel comfortable using it or does not feel they need it.

It depends on your role. A stoicist would be considered as having Aspergers in 2010 but back then they'd be considered stoic and almost certainly wouldn't be killed for not being emotionally incline. It's just today in 2010 the USA has become wimpy and emo, don't assume it was like that in every generation or that todays "normal" was yesterdays "normal".

That being said in case you were wondering, no I don't have Aspergers. I can ready body language just as well as anybody else. The difference is I know sociopaths and psychopaths exist, and I know clever predators exist. They aren't going to be honest on any level, they wear masks.

In fact I wear masks too when necessary. So trying to analyze a chameleon is kind of pointless when you use rudimentary methods. You'll just see different masks or different faces. The only way to truly analyze a complex person is to use the slow process.

Yes there are a lot of very simple people who do what they feel and who adopt body language to show off what they feel. These people typically also are naive, get exploited a lot, precisely for that reason. Precisely because somebody like me, or you, can size them up in an instant and know they are a sucker.

Re:You can't assess character

[budgenator]

A new technique developed at King’s College London uses a fifteen minute MRI scan to diagnose autism spectrum disorder (ASD). ... The researchers found that ASD patients had special cortical features that allowed their brains to be distinguished from the other two groups. By contrast, ADHD brains could not be distinguished from their healthy counterparts. Because of the small sample size, researchers were unable to distinguish between distinct diagnoses along the autism spectrum (e.g autism vs. Asperger’s). Future research will be needed to determine whether the new technique can tease out diagnostic subcategories of the disorder – and whether the same technique can find these differences in childrens’ brains. Fifteen minute MRI scan to diagnose autism spectrum disorder

Actually the original point is ASD not only have difficulty reading body language intuitively but don't send it intuitively either so your not going to be able to read them in an instant and anything you do read is likely to be wrong anyways. In the NT population body language usually trumps verbal language, in the ASD population Verbal language trumps body language.

Re:You can't assess character

[elucido]

A new technique developed at King’s College London uses a fifteen minute MRI scan to diagnose autism spectrum disorder (ASD). ... The researchers found that ASD patients had special cortical features that allowed their brains to be distinguished from the other two groups. By contrast, ADHD brains could not be distinguished from their healthy counterparts. Because of the small sample size, researchers were unable to distinguish between distinct diagnoses along the autism spectrum (e.g autism vs. Asperger’s). Future research will be needed to determine whether the new technique can tease out diagnostic subcategories of the disorder – and whether the same technique can find these differences in childrens’ brains. Fifteen minute MRI scan to diagnose autism spectrum disorder

Actually the original point is ASD not only have difficulty reading body language intuitively but don't send it intuitively either so your not going to be able to read them in an instant and anything you do read is likely to be wrong anyways. In the NT population body language usually trumps verbal language, in the ASD population Verbal language trumps body language.

So what you are saying is a person with ASD cannot use body language to communicate and cannot read body language. I'm not disagreeing with that.

I'm saying it's unwise to assume any language is honest, whether it's their words or their bodyspeak, it's just as likely to be false as it is to be correct when you are dealing with a person you know nothing about. It's 50/50, it's like flipping a coin. Only when you learn that their behavior typically matches what they say or their body language can you begin to read them and some people never mean what they say or say what they mean.

I thought people hated the Polar Express

[UDChris]

because it wasn't that great of a film. The 3D wasn't terrible, but most folks I know really didn't care for the story.

Re:I thought people hated the Polar Express

[Reece400]

I watched it last night on TV and the story was lame, but the kid's facial expressions were also damn creepy at times.

Re:I thought people hated the Polar Express

[DerekLyons]

Well, that's happens when you expand thirty or so lines of text into a ninety minute movie...
 
But seriously, the 3D *was* that bad. When characters opened their mouths, you could see the inside of their skulls, etc... etc...

Re:I thought people hated the Polar Express

[budgenator]

it's like they rolled a porcupine in botox and slapped the characters in the face with him; the mechanical monkey in "Toy Story 3" was more lifelike.

The Polar Express was a Cartoon

[RobotRunAmok]

No reason to hate the puppets. But this does give some indication as to why Nancy Pelosi makes so many people uneasy...

Re:The Polar Express was a Cartoon

[gtall]

The uneasiness with Pelosi's look is the Deer-in-the-Headlights stare with the mechanical smile. You expect her to go postal when you turn your back.

Re:The Polar Express was a Cartoon

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget "Chipmunk" McCain...

Re:The Polar Express was a Cartoon

[jc42]

... this does give some indication as to why Nancy Pelosi makes so many people uneasy ...

I heard the same joke on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me a few weeks ago, except that the punch line was "That explains Mitt Romney". ;-)

I'd bet we could generate a list of dozens (hundreds?) of famous people that could be plugged into this joke.

Homocentric bullshit?

[macraig]

My cats look directly and intently at my face every day, and it's obvious from the circumstances that they recognize that a mind with intent is attached to those eyes and they're eager to figure out what that intent might be (and whether it might adversely affect them). This is not at all a behavior exclusive to primates, much less humans. Presumably that means my cats would have hated The Polar Express, too. They're already annoyed by Tom Hanks' nasally voice.

Re:Homocentric bullshit?

[jfengel]

Face-watching is certainly not unique to humans, but the "uncanny valley" presumably is. Or if other species have a similar response, it's a lot harder to test.

We might well learn something if we could get a cat to respond to The Polar Express, but getting cats to do ANYTHING reliably in a behavioral study is a pain in the ass. You'd be better trying it on dogs.

For that matter, it would be interesting to see where the uncanny valley arises in observations of other species. Does can you get that creepy effect from a not-quite-right dog or cat? Humans anthropomorphize like crazy anyway, especially with faces, so much so that they've given it a name (pareidolia). I don't think cats experience that to the same degree.

Re:Homocentric bullshit?

[mdielmann]

We might well learn something if we could get a cat to respond to The Polar Express, but getting cats to do ANYTHING reliably in a behavioral study is a pain in the ass. You'd be better trying it on dogs.

How are dogs any better? From everything I've seen, they will do whatever gives them the most treats.

Re:Homocentric bullshit?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you sure you aren't anthropomorphizing your cats? Seriously, it's easier for humans to project personality on things that don't look like us but have similar "facial" features (two eyes, a mouth, etc).

With everything from animals to cars people will project personality onto them, but when something is supposed to be taken as a human at face value and isn't then we hit that Uncanny Valley.

Re:Homocentric bullshit?

[Anonymous Coward]

Domesticated animals watch faces. NOVA did an episode about this not long ago, with scientists that aren't Neal Degrasse Tyson and everything.

Re:Homocentric bullshit?

[jfengel]

For researchers, the fact that dogs go nuts for treats is a bonus. You can use it as an incentive to participate in the experiment. As opposed to cats, who will generally just ignore everything going on around them, treats or no.

It can be done. It's just more work.

Re:Homocentric bullshit?

[Quiet_Desperation]

You need to consider that scent is as almost a large part of a cat's perceptual universe as sight. Even the best CGI or robotic cat simulation won't have the scent.

Re:Homocentric bullshit?

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

My cats look directly and intently at my face every day, and it's obvious from the circumstances that they recognize that a mind with intent is attached to those eyes and they're eager to figure out what that intent might be (and whether it might adversely affect them).

Dogs you mean. No other animal can beat dogs when it comes to reading the human mind. Most animals don't even know to look at where we are pointing at. Dogs have evolved with humans for the last 30,000 years. I posted earlier the theory about dog-human interaction could be the one that led to sedentism that was the precursor to the domestication of plants and agriculture. Someone asked for references. See Nicholas Wade's book "Before the Dawn" for a good over view of "The Great Leap Forward". (But the main thrust of that book was building inheritance trees of the Y Chromosome, the mitochondrial DNA, DNA of the body louse, the tree of languages etc and showing how they all agree with one another and gives us clues about fixing crucial dates before the recorded history. For example lactose tolerance and cattle domestication in west-central Europe about 8000 years ago. Or the correlation between horse based civilizations and Indo-Aryan language family. )

Re:Homocentric bullshit?

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

How are dogs any better? From everything I've seen, they will do whatever gives them the most treats.

Compared to most animals who either run away from humans or try to attack the humans or they ignore the humans, dogs' understanding that "If I do what that human likes I might get a reward" is an intellectual achievement orders of magnitude superior to other species.

Re:Homocentric bullshit?

[StikyPad]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/family/pets/8151924/Dogs-are-smarter-than-cats.html

Re:Homocentric bullshit?

[mcgrew]

Cats love to try to stare you down. It's a game to them (and they hate losing).

Cats are far more intelligent than anyone gives them credit for.

Re:Homocentric bullshit?

[tabrnaker]

I'm pretty sure that's not the dog's understanding. The dogs understanding developed over thousands of years as it evolved from a wolf who put hard work into getting food into an animal that came to recognise the fact that humans are disgusting pigs who literally liter the floor with their some-what edible garbage.

Dogs understand if there's a human nearby there's a likely chance it'll drop something edible.

Re:Homocentric bullshit?

[Captain Hook]

I suspect the uncanny valley response in humans is an early warning system against communicable illnesses, we react adversely to anything which doesn't quite fit into the way a person is meant to look or behave both of which could indicate infection before more overt signals can be seen such as more obvious skin discolouration, sweating, physical reactions such as coughing and sneezing etc.

If my suspicion is correct then the only other animals which would experience a strong uncanny valley effect would need to be
a) Heavily Influenced by the Visual Sense
b) Social Animals where communicable disease represents a serious threat

Any animal which can rely heavily on another sense to identify potential illness, smell being the most obvious one, probably doesn't need uncanny valley response because they would have more direct evidence of illness.

Re:Homocentric bullshit?

[moogaloonie]

"Most animals don't even know to look at where we are pointing at." Someone (perhaps it was you?) brought this up in the last "cats vs. dogs"discussion and since I didn't comment then, I will comment now. Pointing is a learned non-verbal communicative act. A finger is not a laser pointer, and there is no reason why looking at the finger itself is wrong or should be used as a mark of low intellect. I won't bother with whether dogs are born knowing this or learn it while playing fetch and other games with humans, but will point out that dogs with this skill have historically been valued by hunters over ones that don't have this skill. A cat may not recognize the position of your fingers as a specific instruction as most cats tend to just watch any object in motion. Cats' and dogs' respective behavior has much to do with how we tend to play with them, which in turn is a reflection on how we have traditionally exploited them to our advantage.

Re:Homocentric bullshit?

[feepness]

Dogs you mean. No other animal can beat dogs when it comes to reading the human mind. Most animals don't even know to look at where we are pointing at.

I had heard that about dogs, and one of the interesting things I learned when having kids is that following someone else's gaze to see what they are looking at, and following a pointed finger, are precursors to speech in small children.

Re:Homocentric bullshit?

[macraig]

What you're describing is social intelligence. Dogs have that in spades. Housecats don't, because they're didn't evolve as a pack species. Perhaps over time we will force them to evolve it, too.

Re:Homocentric bullshit?

[macraig]

Funny you mention pointing: my cats also understand the relevance and intent of pointing, at least to a limited degree. If I point to the bed, for instance, they seem to understand that the act is a communication that they should jump up on the bed (and/or that the coast up there is clear).

Re:Homocentric bullshit?

[macraig]

Agreed (and part of my point). They're just more autistic than dogs; they lack the social intelligence because they didn't evolve as a pack species. They haven't stopped evolving, though, any more than we have, so who knows. The watching I was describing, though, is specific to when I'm moving or doing stuff and they are motivated to figure out if that "stuff" will affect them. Ain't no game... it's self-preservation!

Re:Homocentric bullshit?

[ushering05401]

If you have wood floors it is possible to train with thumps. Have to use clicks if not. My little one not only comes and goes when asked, but also follows hand directions and tattles on her sister when she gets in trouble (ie: eating a stash of rubber-bands).

When people see here come to get me for the first time they start making jokes about Ruby coming to tell me that Timmy is stuck in the well like Lassie (animal t.v. star). Then they start to realize that she really is talking to me and wanting me to follow her to see something and everyone gets kinda quiet and unsure of what to say.

Re:Homocentric bullshit?

[Anonymous Coward]

Pointing is a learned non-verbal communicative act. A finger is not a laser pointer, and there is no reason why looking at the finger itself is wrong or should be used as a mark of low intellect.

There was a Nova special on chimpanzees a year or two ago, with a focus on what makes them intellectually different from us, and one of the key differences is the *instinctive* ability of humans to understand pointing. Young infants understand pointing without training (well, according to that same Nova program). Chimps, not so much; they have to learn it (and many seemingly can't).

I don't know where dogs and cats are with respect to instinctive understanding of pointing. Our cats have always had trouble with it, some never really seeming to learn it. Our Terrier puppy has picked it up, but he's pretty smart compared to other dogs we've had. Regardless, none of our pets, cats nor dogs, have demonstrated to me any kind of instinct for recognizing pointing.

- T

Re:Homocentric bullshit?

[moogaloonie]

I would assume it comes from fetching. You make a motion while throwing something and the dog looks to see where what you threw went. Make the motion without throwing anything, which is a bit like pointing, and the dog will still look. Cats look at your hand wondering whether you are about to drop a treat for them, the finger sticking out makes no difference.

Re:Homocentric bullshit?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with the theory that dogs evolved with us over a long span and thus are good at recognizing our communication cues is that the Russian silver foxes which were domesticated over the last few decades are just as good at understanding our cues as domestic dogs.

Re:Homocentric bullshit?

[Anonymous Coward]

I hadn't thought of that, and there's probably some merit to the idea. Our puppy doesn't quite "get" pointing when it's done slowly, which supports your idea - an object thrown so slowly wouldn't go very far, so no reason for him to look far away.

Our remaining cat used to fetch as a kitten, but gave it up for adulthood. I had never tried it with any of our other cats (too late now).

- T

Re:Homocentric bullshit?

[martyros]

My cats look directly and intently at my face every day,

Mine too. Which makes it especially interesting that many autistic children don't look at people's eyes by instinct, and actually have to be trained to look at a person's face when listening or talking to someone.

Re:Homocentric bullshit?

[Anzya]

Agreed (and part of my point). They're just more autistic than dogs; they lack the social intelligence because they didn't evolve as a pack species.

People likes to say this but I'm not so sure it's true. Abandoned and feral cats tends to natually form packs. I got two cats and usually where one of them is the other one is probably nearby. The love sleeping in a pile or in a cute ying-yang manner. Cats are social animals they just aren't dogs.

It's a bit like claiming that a american is stupid because he doesn't know japanese :)

Two examples, wagging of the tail usually means that a dog is happy to see you. When a cat does it he is probably about to rip your throath out, probably because you think he is a dog.

A dog might not stare at you when he is happy to see you bu he has his eyes open. A cat when he likes you closes them because he trust you not to hurt him.

Re:Homocentric bullshit?

[macraig]

I'm the caretaker - or perhaps the other way 'round? - of five cats myself, four of which I raised from birth. I've had ample opportunity to observe how they interact with each other. They are all middle aged now, well past the kitten stage when they are most likely to "socialize". When they engage in anything resembling it now, it's out of pure necessity and they do it poorly! Most of the time they prefer to be completely alone and "have their space". They do have distinct personalities, but that characteristic is common to all of them.

Their behavior with each other is what we humans might expect of "autistic" people: they may attempt to lick each other as a sign of acceptance, but they can't read the body language and signals well at all and the effort always devolves into get-the-fuck-AWAY! swatting at each other within moments. I've been observing this behavior every day for years.

Housecats, as a species distinct from, say, lions, are NOT social at all. They are solitary by nature, just as are leopards, mountain lions, cougars, and most other feline species. They PREFER to live alone. Contrast this with dogs, who will ALWAYS seek out other dogs with which to form a pack. Abuse a housecat enough, for instance, and he'll just LEAVE, whereas a dog will stay and take the abuse rather than abandon its pack. Housecats would only form something resembling a very loose pack out of necessity, though it's possible there may be some forced evolution at work.

Re:Homocentric bullshit?

[Transaction7]

Dogs can do some things in interactions with humans that we humans can not do or do as well. Dogs can learn to anticipate different types of epileptic seizures earlier and better than the individual can, or when the individual has no reliable aura to alert her to an impending seizure. too. How many humans do you know who can tell in advance, as dogs have been trained to do, when their master or mistress is about to have a strong emotional reaction, including but not limited to a flashback, rooted in some traumatic events earlier in life before she and the dog met, know when to hide because her master is reacting to such earlier events and neither the dog nor anyone else can get through, which can be dangerous for everyone, or when, with expert help, the mistress is returning to her present, adult state and the dog's presence is again helpful, needed, etc. Paralyzed Veterans of America has backed some research into using service dogs for vets with this common condition, reported even by the most highly decorated veteran of World War II when it was called battle fatigue. This research has also been extended to and verified among survivors of child and adult sexual assault, and service dogs have been properly certified for this. My law practice, etc., unexpectedly came to deal with an awful lot of survivors of childhood sexual abuse, some of whom I met as children and some only as adults, in diverse matters, and one dog somehow became able to identify a survivor of such horrific child abuse, as an adult, with an amazing reliability I saw repeated, just like a trained bird dog responding to a covey of quail, etc. I think I could have qualified this dog as an expert and got a court to admit such evidence within the standards laid down by the highest federal and state courts.

Why do I think everyone is secretly a robot?

[Anonymous Coward]

So then why did I think that I'm the only real sentient human being when I was a kid? I grew out of that somehow, am I autistic deep down or are my survival instincts just extremely poor?

Re:Why do I think everyone is secretly a robot?

[LQ]

So then why did I think that I'm the only real sentient human being when I was a kid? I grew out of that somehow, am I autistic deep down or are my survival instincts just extremely poor?

Lack of a 'theory of mind' probably puts you down the /. end of the autistic spectrum.

Uncanny Valley Roadmap

[Drakkenmensch]

The concept of the uncanny valley is a well known one: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UncannyValley

At the Mountains of Santa ...

[xleeko]

But, but ... they *weren't supposed to look alive*

I suppose the story got a little fouled up in the editing, but here is a clip from the director's cut

I can agree

[Nyder]

I'm an eye person. It's what I love about chicks the most (but their soft curvy parts come in a close second).

But besides that, i can read people by looking in their eyes. Hard to explain, but if I make I contact with you, I connect to you somehow and can figure out what's going on inside.

That being said, it gives me the creeps as most people really, well, suck.

So if i'm looking at your cleavage when we talk, don't be offended, you don't want me to read what's going on in your head.

(you might think i'm being funny, but i'm not, i'm being serious. I don't like be touched either.)

Re:I can agree

[Anonymous Coward]

[lightenupfrancis.jpg]

Re:I can agree

[Anonymous Coward]

The retouch example pic reminds me of stuff I've seen on PhotoShop Disasters. But then again, treading across the uncanny valley on that site tends to lead to unintentional hilarity.

Re:I can agree

[SteveFoerster]

Wow dude, totally TMI there.

Re:I can agree

[Anonymous Coward]

But besides that, i can read people by looking in their eyes. Hard to explain, but if I make I contact with you, I connect to you somehow and can figure out what's going on inside

Okay... or maybe you're mistaking empathy and imagination for perception?

Re:I can agree

[tabrnaker]

It's a skill that every human is capable of. The only problem is as you state, most people are really ugly on the inside, and so you tend to stop looking. Also the more you try to hide what you perceive as your own ugliness the less you'll be able to see of others as well.

Of course, you need to learn how to close up as well and turn it off.

In the long run, nothing is useful if it's always ON or OFF.

Re:I can agree

[ushering05401]

If you suppress the speech centers in an average human they gain the abilities the GP is describing as well. I believe it has to do with the number of distinct visual reference points the brain is comparing. Therefore, even someone that appears to be angry may display cues that indicate an internally suppressed desire not to be angry. These cues may be embedded in alterations to the speed of facial reaction, dilation effects of the pupils, blush effects, and even visible pulse indicators (temple, neck).

Don't know if it U.S. only, but most Normals call it the 'people-picker,' because even in non-stressful situations enough information is being passed between the lines for the Norms to know something subconscious is influencing their feelings towards a new acquaintance.

People that are more sensitive usually start at the description: empathic. The wise stop there. The preds get further out from there the more 'evidence' of their 'power' they accumulate.

Re:I can agree

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure you can. Prove it and collect 1 million: http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge.html

Re:I can agree

[phantomfive]

If you start paying attention, you can get the same effect just from standing next to a person. You don't even need to look in their eyes.

Prosopagnosia

[Anonymous Coward]

It's called prosopagnosia. And yes, the uncanny valley works on them. They can see if something is human or not.

What they can't do is decide who the face they see belongs to. Al least not without detailed study of said face.

"Hmm, I see blue eyes with large lashes. A nose with some large pores. The chin is somewhat pointy. I'm guessing this is Jennifer. Oh wait, she wears the same shoes that Jennifer wore three months ago. Yes, I think it might very well be her."

Not exaggerated either.

Re:Prosopagnosia

[Chris Burke]

"Hmm, I see blue eyes with large lashes. A nose with some large pores. The chin is somewhat pointy. I'm guessing this is Jennifer. Oh wait, she wears the same shoes that Jennifer wore three months ago. Yes, I think it might very well be her."

Wow. That definitely deserves a top spot in the Big List of Awkward Things to Say Out Loud While Having Sex.

Re:Prosopagnosia

[Anonymous Coward]

Not being able to see an emotional response in others, or even just being able to recognize them has a severe impact on sexual relations for prosopagnosiacs.

Re:Prosopagnosia

[gfreeman]

"Hmm, I see blue eyes with large lashes. A nose with some large pores. The chin is somewhat pointy. I'm guessing this is Jennifer. Oh wait, she wears the same shoes that Jennifer wore three months ago. Yes, I think it might very well be her."

Wow. That definitely deserves a top spot in the Big List of Awkward Things to Say Out Loud While Having Sex.

"Hmm, I see blue eyes with large lashes. A nose with some large pores. The chin is somewhat pointy. I'm guessing this is Mom."

Re:Prosopagnosia

[tabrnaker]

Yeah, life and movies used to be really interesting when i couldn't assemble faces.

Then i learned how to get my awareness out of my mind and actually look at the world while widening my myopic viewpoint till i could see people as complete objects and not random assortments of tiny details which i had to somehow reconstruct into a face (which is quite difficult when you've never seen a face in entirety).

Cool thing about focusing on details is that you never watch the same movie twice because you never see the whole frame at once. Have to say movies are more boring and static now, especially since if you see the whole frame you tend to follow the camera focus (because you can see it!).

Re:Prosopagnosia

[Red Flayer]

For a lot of reasons, not the least of which is why she's wearing shoes while having sex in the first place.

Re:Prosopagnosia

[Anonymous Coward]

Or he could just, you know, look at her breasts.

Re:Prosopagnosia

[benthurston27]

That's weird I recognize people fairly well, but the way you went through the individual features of the face makes me think of when I'm trying to paint somebody, when I recognize someone I just know who they are I don't analyze their face at least consciously.

Key to survival

[Arancaytar]

Yeah, I guess it'd be pretty important if the zombie uprising ever happens, or the world is taken over by sentient dolls.

Re:Key to survival

[sourcerror]

or the world is taken over by sentient dolls.

You mean terminators, right?

note taken

[Anonymous Coward]

thanks

also please bring back jon katz

--
BOB ZEMECKIS
"if it doesn't say PURINA, bury it in the yard!!"

Re:note taken

[morgan_greywolf]

I don't have to see Jon Katz' face to know that he's not human.

Re:note taken

[bill_mcgonigle]

I don't have to see Jon Katz' face to know that he's not human.

Dude, you're having a bad flashback. It'll be OK soon, try to stay calm.

Try the experiment with actual faces

[billrp]

Ballmer's photo on Wikipedia would probably indicate "incapable of thought".

I don't seem to have any trouble surviving.

[seebs]

I'm autistic. I don't seem to have the automatic distinction between things with minds and things without minds. In fact, I can occasionally forget that other people have minds, briefly. For instance, a couple of days ago, I was pinching Beloved Spouse's cheeks, and I suddenly got fascinated with how the various components of the face are connected and deform each other. I started messing with this. Suddenly it occurred to me: There is a person experiencing this, and it may not be a preferred experience. But there you have it; for a good four or five seconds, I had completely forgotten that my spouse was a sapient creature. While staring directly at said spouse's face.

I can't think of an occasion on which this has been any kind of survival problem. (My spouse is very forgiving.)

I suspect that it's useful to get this stuff automatically, but it also produces all sorts of strange buggy behavior when we find things that trigger the "that's people" grey matter but which aren't actually people.

Re:I don't seem to have any trouble surviving.

[ushering05401]

Wait, doing shit like that means you are autistic? I'm not sure that's right. Then again, I am occasionally seized by the certainty that the relative densities of thoughts in my skull produce surface-like tensions that can be bounced upon like a trampoline and also drown me... Anyhow, are you sure you aren't just a mental illn'iss'ist like the rest of us?

Relating back to the thread: based on my experience in a human skull our main concern should be not making any one thing both complex enough to fail as unpredictably as a human, and similar enough to a human that people don't know what they are dealing with when they encounter a failing unit.

So the creep factor they are talking about should preferably be increased to the point of being unmistakable for anything that is tied to sufficiently advanced algos for control. This is one of those cases where the triggering of grey matter you reference should be considered a helpful nudge in our design philosophy.

Re:I don't seem to have any trouble surviving.

[Doomdark]

Wait, doing shit like that means you are autistic?

No, diagnosis by doctors confirms you are. Just because he didn't say he has been diagnosed does not mean he hasn't. I would assume implication is that there is the diagnosis. Or are you thinking he is just bragging about being autistic?

Re:I don't seem to have any trouble surviving.

[ushering05401]

Or are you thinking he is just bragging about being autistic?

I was mainly expressing solidarity through humor that someone who has gone through the labeling process might find funny. The fact that many self-diagnosed individuals like to brag about autism spectrum disorders does bother me, though.

It is pretty silly the way behaviorism is leading to subjective conditions. That doesn't mean there aren't millions of people that might be helped by a little more research into human behavior.

Way OT now, though. Anyhow, keep on rockin' ;)

Re:I don't seem to have any trouble surviving.

[seebs]

I've got clinical diagnoses for both autism ("high-functioning") and ADHD (where I'm apparently on the fairly epic fringe). If I understand correctly what people mean by "bragging", I think that's another of the things I don't get. So far as I can tell, all my attempts to assign coherent meaning to words like "proud" or "ashamed" have come up with stuff which is not actually what people mean by these things. There is some kind of concept of people being "better" or "worse" people, apparently, which I simply can't turn into semantic content to evaluate it. It's not even wrong. So I wasn't trying to express superiority or inferiority. Rather, I was addressing the assertion that the hardwired ability to recognize "persons" was of significant survival value, such that lacking it would prevent survival. It is not so. All you need to be able to do is pick them out by thinking about them quickly enough, and "quickly enough" can be on a scale of minutes, not microseconds.

When it comes to, say, predators, it doesn't [b]matter[/b] whether there's a mind. An Eliza-grade AI running claws and teeth will kill you just as dead as a deeply emotional and philosophical panther. So again, the intuitive recognition of mind is irrelevant; what matters is recognition of behavioral patterns. Spotting minds can help with that, but it can also mislead you.

Re:I don't seem to have any trouble surviving.

[Securityemo]

Interesting. I have Asperger's, and I think I experience such an effect - in the middle of a conversation (or otherwhise), it feels like something "shuts down" wholly or partially in the brain (a sense, like closing your eyes or plugging your ears) - and I become effectively socioemotionally aphasic, and have to keep the conversation going via mechanical acting until this kicks in again. This is hard, and makes me feel "fake". I also doubt that this "sense" or "mode" functions at full capacity regularly. I also experience other people's emotions like "aura colors" in my mind to a large degree. I came across a study where they scanned the brains of high and low-functioning asperger cases, and saw that the activation in the autistics where located in the frontal lobes, and not an area in the center of the brain. They dubbed this the "self signal", theorizing that it signified awareness of self in a social context. This would also explain why I feel like I "lose myself" when this happens as I observe others interact.

http://www.technologyreview.com/biotech/20167/

Re:I don't seem to have any trouble surviving.

[Securityemo]

I also think that it's very important for normal people to realize what hyper/hyposensitivity and emotio-sensory over/understimulation in asperger means (apparently, autistics are less vulnerable to this). Just because you feel something doesn't mean you understand what you are feeling (I can only speak for myself of course). A normal person who "brags" probably brags, while an asperger person simply throws thought and emotion full-force in someones general direction and hopes that they catch it. I think that being hit in the face by this is what the parent means by "them bragging". There's only 1 and 0, and processing 0.5 takes some effort. And some people just can't.

art

[Quiet_Desperation]

There's simple artistic concerns as well beyond the math. Zemeckis and others need to sit down and understand why Pixar's hand crafted, "super deformed" characters come across as orders of magnitude more realistic than high tech attempts to directly dump humans into the computer. I've always felt if you want realistic humans just use actors, and CGI everything else.

Re:art

[tabrnaker]

See my cutebeauty continuum post.

Re:art

[Anonymous Coward]

There's simple artistic concerns as well beyond the math. Zemeckis and others need to sit down and understand why Pixar's hand crafted, "super deformed" characters come across as orders of magnitude more realistic than high tech attempts to directly dump humans into the computer. I've always felt if you want realistic humans just use actors, and CGI everything else.

Because we only focus on certain features of people when we look at them. Super-deformed is a pretty good example of the way our mental image differs from the physical dimensions of reality. Thus, we are able to identify with such "cartoons" pretty easily, as they tend to match what we're already looking for.

Don't Be Too Proud Of This Technological Terror...

[denzacar]

LotR is based on a seminal work of fantasy literature for all ages, read by generations of readers over the decades. So it is fair to say that it already had an established fan-base.
It also featured a whole lot of "real people" actors, most of them of a rather high caliber.

Polar Express is based on a 1980's children's book, based around a character created by Coca Cola's marketing division.
A character that has since then grown into a symbol of consumerism like no other.
Oh, and the animation sucked.

Also, one features a HUGE universe and loads of heroic battles and quests, while the other features... well... public transportation.

Re:Don't Be Too Proud Of This Technological Terror

[ocdscouter]

Polar Express is based on a 1980's children's book, based around a character created by Coca Cola's marketing division. A character that has since then grown into a symbol of consumerism like no other. Oh, and the animation sucked.

Forgive me if I'm being daft, but could you elaborate on that a little?

Re:Don't Be Too Proud Of This Technological Terror

[DubThree]

Good point. It's not exactly apples-to-apples. But people wouldn't have been nearly as impressed with LOTR had the CGI characters been of Polar Express caliber.

Re:mind with intent

[DocSavage64109]

My cats look directly and intently at my face every day

Maybe your cats are just waiting for you to pass on so they can eat you? Actually, I do wonder what they are thinking at such times... maybe something as simple as love.

How can they say

[bugs2squash]

that the cut-off is at the 67%/33% mark ? After all, one end of the scale is fixed, a picture of a real human, but the other end is not fixed, should they have drawn the line at 99%human/1% lego brick ?

Re:How can they say

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree - the human face isn't a fixed point - different people look different.

Re:How can they say

[aiht]

The point being that you can hit 100% real, even though there are multiple different faces that fit that criteria. So, not a fixed point - more of a fixed line.
There's no actual boundary on the 'unreal' end - just as far as they happened to take this particular experiment.

Re:How can they say

[Legion303]

The other end of the scale is a picture of a real doll that looks similar to the initial real person head shot, from what I gathered.

Bridalplasty

[Anonymous Coward]

I always thought Joan Rivers, Priscilla Presley, Real Housewives of whatever were CGI effects.

Re:mind with intent

[Nadaka]

They are attempting to calculate the best approach to getting fresh food in their bowl based on your mood and their own. Do they howl until you give in? A little mewl and a flick of the tail? A pur and flop next to the bowl so that you notice it is empty while giving a belly rub? That little head butt thing that says "you one of my people and thats cool with me"? Do they sit on your dinner plate? Do they walk up to a glass of grape juice, look you in the eye and then knock it onto the carpet?

Re:Don't Be Too Proud Of This Technological Terror

[dzfoo]

I think he is alluding to the 1930s Coca-Cola marketing campaign in which the first depiction of Santa Clause as we know him now--the fat, jolly fellow with a white beard and a red and white suit (which incidentally were the colors of the Coca-Cola logo)--was introduced.

Depictions of Santa Clause prior to this varied in the colors and girth of the mythical person.

          -dZ.

Re:Don't Be Too Proud Of This Technological Terror

[denzacar]

Well, it was a bit of a Tongue-in-cheek description of Santa Claus, based on a urban not-completely-legend that he was created by Coca Cola in order to sell more Coke during winter.
Actually, he was more like "appropriated" for that purpose.

As for the "symbol of consumerism" - sadly, I can't say that I was joking there.
Cause, he is either selling soda-pop, or promoting shopping.
And even at his pre-Coca Cola moral best, he was still a symbol of material rewarding for "being good".

Humanoid robots

[a Flatbed Darkly]

This and related observations and studies go further to explain why humanoid robots are often found strange and/or disconcerting than they do to explaining why animated films have failed; the reason for The Polar Express's failure is far more likely to have been generally poor animation and very competent competition. It's somewhat of a a pity that humanoid robots are as unlikely as they are to take off, outside of Japan and perhaps S. Korea, due to the difficulty at achieving a human-looking face; they'd be profitable, apart from anything else.

Re:Humanoid robots

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree that the full humanoid effect is going to remain difficult without some disruptive developments. Since you brought up Asia, I might mention that the concept of fuck-stumps has made the circuit many times over the years as both a means of population control and health-care delivery vehicle.

Given that Mecha exists as a venerable movement at this point I don't think we will have to wait too many more years before some group (betting in Japan) decides to dispense with the human-like aspects and start building 'extensions' designed to deliver facets of the human experience in a controlled environment - you know, so the human can get on with the important stuff like job/taxes/servitude. You might consider a fleshlight to be a precursor more than the Real Doll.

Once people start taking their meds via 'immersion' each morning/night/whenever we will be able to have everything we want. Just outlaw the extension devices on earth, start firing large supplies of free devices and meds at our nearest satellites/planetary neighbors, and watch 'em all go burning off across the night sky in pursuit of their gods.

Given the large group dynamics we could probably see equal rights for public stumping become an issue by attaching to the breast-feeding movement. Can you even imagine ;)

Re: Polar Express

[Animats]

The Polar Express seemed to have "rubbery" motion capture. I used to see this problem at trade shows like SIGGRAPH. The electromagnetic motion capture people would have a stage with a live dancer wearing sensors at her joints, and screens showing the CG character driven from the dancer. The CG character always moved worse than the live dancer. If the dancer did a hard stop, the CG character would show much less abrupt deceleration. That's because the electromagnetic systems were noisy, and had to be low-pass filtered.

There were also alignment problems. The hand positions were usually off. Metal in the area would distort the fields slightly. Around 2000 or so, errors of several inches were still common. I asked one of the demo dancers to touch her fingertips together, and the CG character was off by the breadth of a hand. The Polar Express animation had a similar slightly-off look.

This got better once motion capture started using multiple cameras at much higher frame rates than the animation. There's still some noise and filtering is still needed, but the noise is up at a few hundred Hz and the filters have higher cutoff frequencies. By the time the motion is downconverted to 24FPS, the effects of the filtering have disappeared.

Sex-bots?

[tekrat]

If this guy is talking about the coming revolution of sex-bots, count me in! I for one, would be happy to roll over in bed to find a robot. As long as she's cute and does what she's told.

Re:Sex-bots?

[badkarmadayaccount]

Or at least approximately. *wink*

Re:Don't Be Too Proud Of This Technological Terror

[denzacar]

Well, depends on the people.

As a kid, I was VERY impressed by Bakshi's version which looks rather inferior today.
Still, despite all its flaws it still made loads of money.
Actually, buck-for-buck per minute of production, it was a grater success than the Jackson's trilogy.

But I digress. It was never about the money or technology - it is about the strength of the story.
And there usually isn't really that much of THAT going around in most tales aimed at small children.

Re:Don't Be Too Proud Of This Technological Terror

[kj_kabaje]

Red Stripe Beer is still a better Holiday beverage for Santa at our house. I'd like to propose Red Stripe taking over for Coca-Cola and carrying this mantel. As a side-effect, The Polar Express could become a good deal more entertaining, too.

Re:Don't Be Too Proud Of This Technological Terror

[StikyPad]

The image of Santa as a plump man was popularized by "A Visit From St. Nicholas ('Twas the Night Before Christmas)" in 1823:

He had a broad face, and a little round belly
That shook when he laugh'd, like a bowl full of jelly:
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laugh'd when I saw him in spite of myself;

And the modern icon is generally credited to Thomas Nast, circa 1880, upon which Haddon Sundblom based his Coca-Cola ads a full 50 years later. At most, Sundblom popularized the red suit, but he was quite an artist in his own right, so calling it a "character created by Coca Cola's marketing division" is both giving their "marketing department" too much credit, as well as doing a disservice to Sundblom. It's more accurate to say that Coca-Cola's advertising used to consist of actual art.

nova special

[snooo53]

I just saw a Nova special about this exact topic called Dogs Decoded. He wasn't one of the researchers listed but I'm sure there are many out there. It's on instant watch if you are Netflix customer

Re:nova special

[Anonymous Coward]

Trailer
Episode Details

Strange though, usually PBS posts the whole episode online; can't find it.

See timestamp...

[denzacar]

... of this post.

Re:See timestamp...

[StikyPad]

Reading at +3 is a double-edged sword.

Re:Don't Be Too Proud Of This Technological Terror

[Sique]

No. It's simply wrong and probably a messing up with another character which indeed was created by a marketing campaign.

I can show you Santa Claus pictures going back at least to 1822 showing a white bearded, red clothed Santa Claus (the german "Struwwelpeter" for instance has one).

Santa Claus (Saint Nicholas) was bishop in Myra, a small town in today's southern Turkey. As a bishop, he is wearing a red gown on all depictions of him - showing him with the red ornate of every catholic bishop. In the european catholic countries Santa Claus is still wearing a bishop hat (a mitre), but everything else is very similar to the US version.

And an editorial piece of the New York Times from 1932, several years before the marketing campaign from Coca Cola, already complains about exactly that standardized Santa Claus picture the urban myth attributes to Coca Cola.

No, Coca Cola has nothing to do with the creation of Santa Claus or any of his modern image. It just took the iconography that was already there for a marketing campaign.

But one Christmas character indeed comes from a marketing campaign of that time: It's Rudolph the Rednoosed Reindeer.

Re:Don't Be Too Proud Of This Technological Terror

[plurgid]

It's funny you should mention consumerism in relation to Polar Express.
This was on TV last night and my kids watched it, as they typically do every year ... so I've seen it a few times.

I never really noticed until this year, how blatantly manipulative this film is.
They find that emotional trigger loosely based around the hopeful kid expecting the world for Christmas, whose parents might not be able to provide that ... and they just hammer on it relentlessly for 90 minutes.

Listen to the lyrics for the big musical number "When Christmas Comes to Town" and tell me I'm wrong.

One thing's for sure. If you are a parent and you've been hit by the recession this year, this movie is going to make you feel like utter shit.

And it's completely on purpose ... more propaganda to make sure you mortgage the farm to buy more overpriced useless plastic crap from China, before the year is out.

What pisses me off is how my kid's elementary school makes a big deal out of it every year. They have a reading, and pass out little christmas bells to the kids and stuff. The book has apparently won some sort of children's literature award. Charlie and the Chocolate factory or Charlotte's Web, it ain't. Gotta wonder what the story behind that "award" was and if it was at all related to the influence of the film's backers.

Oh also, the whole film looks like bad video game graphics from the 90's.

bah humbug!

eye contact is cultural

[Error27]

Other cultures have different rules on eye contact. In the second part of the study when they measured where people looked the most, the people were looking at the eyes. It's hardly surprising that if you make the bits that people focus on look more artificial, they think the whole model looks artificial.

If they had done this test in a different country where people don't make eye contact then the results might have been different.

Re:Don't Be Too Proud Of This Technological Terror

[lennier]

Rudolph the Rednoosed Reindeer.

he knows when you've been very very naughty...

Re:Don't Be Too Proud Of This Technological Terror

[Sir Lurkalot]

I think he is alluding to the 1930s Coca-Cola marketing campaign in which the first depiction of Santa Clause as we know him now--the fat, jolly fellow with a white beard and a red and white suit (which incidentally were the colors of the Coca-Cola logo)--was introduced.

Depictions of Santa Clause prior to this varied in the colors and girth of the mythical person.

          -dZ.

I cannot mod you up,, but that is interesting..

I seem to cue off the wrong things

[subreality]

Looking at the example side by side comparisons at the top, I think I was latching onto the wrong changes. I think they were trying to push the geometry around a little, but what *actually* caught my eye was the ones on the right look like they have a lower poly count and lower res textures. Was that actually what they were trying for? If not, they would have made a better test by similarly de-resing the originals.

Mod Parent Informative!!

[Anonymous Coward]

The ones who modded parent funny, should look at this... http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&source=imghp&biw=1152&bih=577&q=Pelosi&gbv=2&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

Re:Don't Be Too Proud Of This Technological Terror

[ushering05401]

Another take.

Though the Lapp figure is clearly identified as a Tolkienesque Wose, the melding of pagan mythology with Christianity over the years is fascinating.

Even more interesting is the range of names attributed to this one figure. A small selection:
Chläus - Pretty standard
Kinderfresser - Child Eater
Old Scratch - Used for Satan directly in early America

And before there were elves there were the dark helpers with names like:
Black Peter
Claws
The Dark One
The Dark Helper

Anyhow - agreed that this thing go much further back than any add campaign. At least far enough back for the symbols to infiltrate and merge with ancient pagan teachings all over the world.

Re:Don't Be Too Proud Of This Technological Terror

[adamofgreyskull]

But one Christmas character indeed comes from a marketing campaign of that time: It's Rudolph the Rednoosed Reindeer.

Is that the version where Santa comes a little too late on that foggy Christmas Eve to find a depressed Rudolph has already hung himself? ;)

Re:Don't Be Too Proud Of This Technological Terror

[Anonymous Coward]

A reindeer with a glowing red noose? That's pretty dark... wait

photoshopping

[agendi]

Does this mean now we have a baseline for glamor photoshopping to be "keep it 67% real"?

Results:

[ring-eldest]

In the words of Bill Hicks, "you're not a human until you're in my phone book."

found in real life

[uniquegeek]

I just finished watching the (newer) Battlestar Galactica series. The woman who plays Ellen doesn't look human... hard to look at, and hard to look away, at the same time. It creeped me out.

Just like "how many parts can be replaced before a car isn't the same car"... "how much plastic surgery before you're not human anymore?"

*shiver*

Re:found in real life

[Fnord666]

"how much plastic surgery before you're not human anymore?"

See also Ghost in the Shell.

Re:found in real life

[badkarmadayaccount]

I think she looks hot.

Hmm, eyes ...

[Toon Moene]

I got a new glass eye the 22nd of November (you're supposed to replace them every 3 years, because, even though they're made of glass, they wear out).

Nobody noticed.

Potential for movement

[Waccoon]

One thing that does it for me is when the eyelids look like they rest directly on top of the eyeball or are fully detached, rather than hover slightly on top of it so they can slide along the surface. Dolls rarely get this properly right. The eyes are always either sunken or flush.

Re:Don't Be Too Proud Of This Technological Terror

[Anonymous Coward]

... But one Christmas character indeed comes from a marketing campaign of that time: It's Rudolph the Rednoosed Reindeer.

Freudian slip there?

Re:Don't Be Too Proud Of This Technological Terror

[lul_wat]

Sinterklaas is the dutch / belgian take on it with a long history too, if anyone wants something to read about

Re:Don't Be Too Proud Of This Technological Terror

[Udo Schmitz]

And an editorial piece of the New York Times from 1932, several years before the marketing campaign from Coca Cola, already complains about exactly that standardized Santa Claus picture the urban myth attributes to Coca Cola.

That's even from 1927.

http://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/santa/cocacola.asp

Re:Don't Be Too Proud Of This Technological Terror

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet the contemporary image of Santa Claus was not so fixed in the American Christmas tradition until Coca-Cola had its way with him. Coca-Cola took one image among many, and that is the image we now overwhelmingly associate with Santa Claus. The company did not invent him, but it is their chosen depiction of him that has become the orthodox version. It doesn't matter much that there was a Santa before Coca-Cola; today's Santa is the Coca-Cola Santa.

Attractive does not mean worthwhile.

[elucido]

Many attractive women/men aren't worth the time investment. Their intelligence is irrelevant, what is relevant is their character.

The average person can't play poker.

[elucido]

The average person is ignorant enough that you can learn everything about them by the color of their skin and the look in their eyes. Right?

Re:The average person can't play poker.

[mcgrew]

Nobody can learn anything about a person by the color of their skin, except what color their skin is. Body language, now, that's a different matter.

Re:mind with intent

[feepness]

So basically the amount of thought that goes into how to get sex from my wife.

You can read lies, but you can't read character.

[elucido]

Since everybody is a liar, and we all lie on a regular basis, determining that someone is a liar reveals nothing. It is useful to know when an inexperienced liar is telling a lie because their body language is honest. Experienced liars lie with their body language as well as their words.

Experienced liars will break down into tears in front of you and tell a sob story, and make you feel empathy for them only to exploit it later.

Think of Casey Anthony or Misty Crosland.

Re:Don't Be Too Proud Of This Technological Terror

[Opportunist]

(sing) The niiiight, Santa went craaaaazy... (/sing)

No kidding. I plan to play that tomorrow at the family xmas party. Maybe I get thrown out and can leave early.

Re:Don't Be Too Proud Of This Technological Terror

[Opportunist]

Well, last time I checked, bad kids get a lump of coal. And judging from what my grandma said about the time between the wars, coal was something they'd probably have killed for, so...

Re:Don't Be Too Proud Of This Technological Terror

[gullevek]

Saint Nicholas has absolutely nothing to do with Santa Claus, at least in my original country. The day for him (IIRC now) is on the 6th of December, where you get some chocolates, peanuts, etc. Actually my grandfather my a Saint Nicolas figure, for just that (you could open it and put something inside). I learned in school, that he gave half his red cape to a poor beggar, and that's why he is important.

The christmas presents are brought by the "Christkindl", which is a blond haired woman. When I was a kid I had no idea what Santa Claus is. Only much much later I learned of "Santa Claus", but is still just an american thing for me.

Re:mind with intent

[Legion303]

If your cats are thinking about how to get sex with your wife, it's time to exchange them for new ones.

Re:Don't Be Too Proud Of This Technological Terror

[phantomfive]

Wow, how do you know all that? Are you a Santa historian or something? That makes you my hero.

Re:Don't Be Too Proud Of This Technological Terror

[eugene ts wong]

I can't believe that I agree with you so much.

Our orchestra preformed The Polar Express for our Christmas concert. I was getting into it so much, that I decided to borrow the movie from the library. I was grateful for being able to see it, but I was really disappointed at how shallow the story was.

1 telling moment was when that little kid was so sad that Santa never came to his home. You see his spoiled bratty expression, when they sing that song, "When Christmas Comes to Town". I understand how the Santa concept works [i.e. every good kid deserves a visit from Santa, and then add to that political correctness, so that every kid deserves a visit Santa], but I couldn't help but feel that this kid was being unrealistic. I just kept saying in my mind, to the kid, "Santa is busy. Quit being so demanding.".

Every single moment was about kids wanting something, and about the magic of Christmas. There were no redeeming values in any of the characters. Even Santa was a little bit weird. There was no real conflict in the movie.

Re:Don't Be Too Proud Of This Technological Terror

[Mindcontrolled]

Close but no cigar. The guy with the half cape was St. Martin, a roman soldier who made it to bishop of Tours. He's usually depicted with a red coat, too - but that's the roman legion's officer's cloak. He is celebrated on Nov. 11. The rest is correct, however.

Re:mind with intent

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't take much to get sex from your wife.

Re:Don't Be Too Proud Of This Technological Terror

[Sique]

Not entirely. The Christkindl is a south german tradition - existing only there and traditionally nowhere else. No one for instance in Saxony would have thought of having a Christkindl giving presents for Christmas.

Madame Tutli-Putli

[jte]

Watch the amazing animation 'Madame Tutli-Putli'. on the National Film Board of Canada - her eyes are actually human eyes.

Movie here... http://www.nfb.ca/film/madame_tutli_putli_en

Making of here... http://www.siegelproductions.ca/filmfanatics/model.htm

Re:Don't Be Too Proud Of This Technological Terror

[Anonymous Coward]

Rudolph the Rednoosed Reindeer was found hung early this morning. The other Reindeers had been taunting him for his choice of neckwear. It is believed to be a clear suicide, as he turned the shiny red noose on himself.

Sunglasses!

[sam0737]

Now I would like to repeat the experiment and see how it goes with sunglasses put on.

Re:You can read lies, but you can't read character

[morgan_greywolf]

I'm not sure it's a difference between "experienced" and "inexperienced" as it is a difference between "normal" and "sociopathic". The two people you just cited are likely candidates for being sociopaths. People who aren't sociopathic can't help but reveal they are lying through their body language.

Re:You can read lies, but you can't read character

[elucido]

I'm not sure it's a difference between "experienced" and "inexperienced" as it is a difference between "normal" and "sociopathic". The two people you just cited are likely candidates for being sociopaths. People who aren't sociopathic can't help but reveal they are lying through their body language.

Not everybody with social skills is a sociopath. In some environments you can't trust anybody else and in those environments all your credulous erudite knowledge is a disability in itself.

It's definitely experienced or inexperienced because in the end the goal is to survive through all means right? So no matter what your environment is, you'll be able to adopt the mannerisms, the language, the social skills or thought patterns to survive it, right?

This is a natural ability for some people but not for others. This ability to adapt leads some people to have disregard for what people in their environment claim to think of believe.

They person who sits next to you, smiles at you, shakes your hand with a firm grip, pretends to agree with all your likes and dislikes to build rapport, adopts perfect body language or mirrors yours, this is either a con artist or a rare naive person who happens to like everything you like.

I'm saying people who pay too much attention to how something is said, or what is said, and not enough attention to behavior, is likely to be treated as a sucker. These sorts of people are incapable of surviving in dishonest environments and have a disorder of their own.

Re:You can read lies, but you can't read character

[morgan_greywolf]

Not everybody with social skills is a sociopath

I didn't say that; you are reading something that isn't there. Even among "experienced" liars, there are tells. You have to watch their eyes, because that's the dead giveaway. Most people look away when they're lying, and even in those that don't, there will still be a slight shift in the eyes. It's practically unavoidable.

There are other subtle body cues as well. Everybody has a tell. Just ask any successful poker player.

Re:You can read lies, but you can't read character

[elucido]

Not everybody with social skills is a sociopath

I didn't say that; you are reading something that isn't there. Even among "experienced" liars, there are tells. You have to watch their eyes, because that's the dead giveaway. Most people look away when they're lying, and even in those that don't, there will still be a slight shift in the eyes. It's practically unavoidable.

There are other subtle body cues as well. Everybody has a tell. Just ask any successful poker player.

And it takes months or years of observation to learn them.

Re:Don't Be Too Proud Of This Technological Terror

[prionic6]

I'm sorry to come in on this discussion so late... AFAIK:

The "Christkind(l)" is literally the infant jesus christ. In the history of christmas, it was invented mainly by martin luther, who wanted to have a symbol figure for christmas that was not the catholic saint nikolaus/santa claus. The bishop had been the traditional figure for christmas even in those times. Nowadays, it is mixed up very much. Most of my family is catholic, and we were told that presents come from the "cristkind". Also, Nikolaus comes on 6. of December to bring choclate and maybe some small presents. In my wife's familiy, Nikolaus brings the big gifts for the children on 6th and on christmas itself, only the adults get thier stuff. Just to show that traditions can be a really wierd and mixed up thing.

Interestingly, the roots of christmas go back far longer than the (historical or mythical) birth of jesus. The 25th of December was the date of winter solstice in the old julian calendar. Winter solstice was celebrated in pagan cultures with much of the same symbols that we now associate with a "christian" picture of christmas, e.g mistletoes.

Re:Don't Be Too Proud Of This Technological Terror

[gullevek]

Southern Germany and all of Austria. Or easy to say, everyone that speaks german inside the "Weisswurst border" :D

Re:Don't Be Too Proud Of This Technological Terror

[Mindcontrolled]

It's "south of the Weisswurst equator", heretic. You Prussian or what? ;)

Seriously, happy new year from Munich!

Re:Don't Be Too Proud Of This Technological Terror

[gullevek]

NO! I am from Vienna. I am all for the Weisswurst Equator!

Re:Don't Be Too Proud Of This Technological Terror

[Mindcontrolled]

Belated how it may be, my apologies. Servus ;)