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The Uncanny Valley Explained
ColdWetDog writes "Scientists now believe they've figured out what causes the uncanny valley response. They compared functional MRI scans of volunteers watching two different types of videos: those showing human-appearing androids, and those showing the humans that the robots were created to mimic. 'The results suggest that the uneasiness we feel could be caused by a "perceptual mismatch between appearance and motion."' Basically, the brain seemed to react in a strongly negative manner when the robotic motions of the android didn't match its human-like appearance."
Must have been a very uneasy time for society.
My internetting is no good.
Finally, we see a front page reference to a graph that includes stuffed animals and zombies!
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
From the Wikipedia article:
That describes my reaction to watching politicians.
The Luddites were ahead of their time.
I don't care how weird they move; as long as she's got some big ol' funbags, I'll explore her uncanny valley any day!
We knew this already. They're realistic enough to fool our brains into thinking human, but different enough that the "human" has something seriously wrong with it. That something might be contagious, so you get the "stay the hell away" signal. Imagine a zombie horde where all the zombies are replaced by normal people, but they still act like zombies. Still has the squick factor.
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I fall somewhere on the autism spectrum (officially diagnosed, before someone jumps me for that).
I don't experience the Uncanny Valley effect, and this is the probable evolutionary explanation for it that I've come up with. If it doesn't "look right", it might be a corpse instead of a dead human, or carrying a disease, both of which are possibilities that would explain why the response to Uncanny Valley is a flinch instead of curiosity.
On the other hand, I've been told many times that I myself trigger the Uncanny Valley effect, by virtue of my behavior...
Note: I was 13 when I wrote most of this. Take with several grains of salt.
As an Aspie who has dedicated a large proportion of my adult life trying to be accepted as "normal" by people, I can sympathise with the robots.
When somebody smiles broadly at me, I have to "manually" trigger my (pretty natural-looking) smile, but there is a small delay before my returning smile kicks in. In that fraction of a second, the person smiling at me subconciously realises that something is not quite right, and their smile fades slightly.
So I'll forever be associated with the notion that I am odd, weird, strange, whatever, because no matter how hard I try (and I'm a pretty good actor), I will never come close to having natural charisma. It's not all bad news though - I've built up a group of friends over the years who appreciate me despite my eccentricities, and I have got enough "game" to go out and have a reasonable chance of finding a new girlfriend on any given night. But it wasn't easy to get to that stage, and required a lot of introspection and acting skill.
One way to escape the uncanny valley is to spend a while in a completely different culture, where people expect you to be different and strange, and do not read negative interpretations into tiny social cues. Asia is good.
Brain is hard wired to do a lot of things, some of which are: recognize other humans, read their body language and assess their mood/threat level. Your brain does this in fractions of a second. It's why you flinch if someone raises a hand while moving towards you suddenly.
I suspect the brain's thought process goes something like this when it encounters something that has a semi-human but obviously not real human appearance: "oh something that looks a bit like a human but obviously isn't, ok let's figure out if it's a threat (is it showing teeth? is it bigger than me? etc.)".
But when we enter uncanny valley territory I suspect the thought process goes like this "Oh wow that looks like another human, I wonder what they're intention is... HOLY S*IT BALLS IT'S NOT A HUMAN! Ok something obviously not human is trying very hard to look human. Sure there's probably a lot of innocent explanations but I can't think of one right away so I'm going to go with insanely dangerous predator trying to mask itself, Time to alert the tribe, kill it with pointy sticks and burn the corpse with fire.
Our brains are normally good at picking up a lot of subtle nonverbal queues. Austic people tend to miss them more on a veried level.
While the theory of keeping us away from corpses is a good one. However we don't get the same effect with animal (of different spieces) where many of those dangers are still there.
I think it is the lack of non-verbal communication that makes people uncomfortable. It looks like a human, however I cannot judge it's state of mind. Thus you are afraid of it as it's actions are not telegraphed. We actually pick up a lot of queues and can tell if someone is going to shake your hand or punch you in the gut. With many human looking robots we don't see the queues and are afraid of the next action.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
The feeling of being creeped-out by a NON-moving humanoid.
It's not everyday that both authors are cited in a neuroscience paper.
In a predictive coding account of action perception, the android is not predictable--an agent with
that appearance (human) would typically not move mechanically. When the nervous system is presented with ‘the thing that should not be’ [Lovecraft, 1984 (1936); Hetfield et al., 1986], a propagation of prediction error may occur in the APS. While we cannot state a conclusive or causal link between prediction error and the uncanny valley based on the present data, we suggest this framework may contribute to an explanation for the uncanny valley.
Lovecraft, H.P. (1984 (1936)). The Shadow Over Innsmouth. In: Joshi, S.T., editor. The Dunwich Horror and Others. Sauk City, WI: Arkham House.
Hetfield, J., Ulrich, L. Hammett, K. (1986). The Thing That Should Not Be. Master of Puppets, Electra Records. 12 inch Vinyl.
Anyway, the full article is freely accessible
This is why people hate them.
Why is Snark Required?
Your extreme lack of empathy suggests that you are perhaps borderline psychopathic?
Total speculation, but during a time multiple rather-similar hominids were walking around I wonder if it would have served an anti-mating purpose for situations where the genetic difference may have been large enough to increase odds of hybrid (i.e. sterile) offspring.
They spent money to scientifically determine 'it looks weird'.
Actually, no. If it "looked weird", that wouldn't be a problem. The problem occurs when it looks normal, but moves weird.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
No, it suggests he realizes that Asperger's syndrome is the probably one of the most self-diagnosed mental illnesses out there, and 9 times out of 10 it's just some neckbeard trying to justify their anti-social behaviour.
It ranks up there with "bisexual" teenage girls.