Study: “Uncanny Valley” Feeling is Creepy, Unconscious

Monday, 08 August 2011 | by Pat's Picks

Sometimes, perfection should be avoided. Specifically, says the San Diego Union-Tribune, when making robots. A group of researchers at the University of California has measured something called “uncanny valley,” or the uneasy feeling people get when they come in contact life-like robots, for the first time. They say it’s an unconscious reaction to something that looks familiar but doesn’t act quite right.

Basically, it works like this: People love robots when they look like robots. But when they start looking too much like us—uncannily so—our acceptance of them drops into a valley. Disney found this out the hard way at a screening of “Shrek,” when children in the audience started crying after seeing the movie’s too-human-looking Princess Fiona.

Researchers say the research will help engineers locate a boundary of what’s creepy and what’s not as robots start providing more and more services for us.

Here’s an example of uncanny valley: