The uncanny valley foreshadows negative reactions to near-humanlike beings. Distortions in realistic faces evoked more uncanniness than distortions in artificial ones, presumably due to familiarity. The experiment looked at how familiarity and inversion affect the uncanniness of facial distortions and the capacity to distinguish between warped forms of the same face (distortion sensitivity). Celebrity faces, both recognizable and strange, were gradually warped and either upright or inverted. Uncanniness scores rose with distortion intensity and were higher for familiar and upright faces. Distortion sensitivity increased as distortion difference levels rose, and was strongest for familiar and upright faces. Experiment 2 looked at how to face realism, familiarity, and face orientation all interacted to promote uncanniness across distortions.
The rise in uncanniness across the distortion levels was aided by realism, which was further boosted by upright orientation and familiarity. The data revealed that familiarity, upright posture, and strong face realism all increased sensitivity to uncanniness, most likely through raising distortion sensitivity. Finally, a moderated linear function of face realism and deviation level explained the stimuli’s uncanniness better than a quadratic function. It was explored how the uncanny valley might be reinterpreted as sensitive to departures from accustomed patterns.
Reference:jov.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2778703
