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Yam J, Gong T, Xu H. A stimulus exposure of 50 ms elicits the uncanny valley effect. Heliyon 2024; 10:e27977. [PMID: 38533075 PMCID: PMC10963319 DOI: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e27977] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/12/2023] [Revised: 03/04/2024] [Accepted: 03/08/2024] [Indexed: 03/28/2024] Open
Abstract
The uncanny valley (UV) effect captures the observation that artificial entities with near-human appearances tend to create feelings of eeriness. Researchers have proposed many hypotheses to explain the UV effect, but the visual processing mechanisms of the UV have yet to be fully understood. In the present study, we examined if the UV effect is as accessible in brief stimulus exposures compared to long stimulus exposures (Experiment 1). Forty-one participants, aged 21-31, rated each human-robot face presented for either a brief (50 ms) or long duration (3 s) in terms of attractiveness, eeriness, and humanness (UV indices) in a 7-point Likert scale. We found that brief and long exposures to stimuli generated a similar UV effect. This suggests that the UV effect is accessible at early visual processing. We then examined the effect of exposure duration on the categorisation of visual stimuli in Experiment 2. Thirty-three participants, aged 21-31, categorised faces as either human or robot in a two-alternative forced choice task. Their response accuracy and variance were recorded. We found that brief stimulus exposures generated significantly higher response variation and errors than the long exposure condition. This indicated that participants were more uncertain in categorising faces in the brief exposure condition due to insufficient time. Further comparisons between Experiment 1 and 2 revealed that the eeriest faces were not the hardest to categorise. Overall, these findings indicate (1) that both the UV effect and categorical uncertainty can be elicited through brief stimulus exposure, but (2) that categorical uncertainty is unlikely to cause the UV effect. These findings provide insights towards the perception of robotic faces and implications for the design of robots, androids, avatars, and artificial intelligence agents.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jodie Yam
- Psychology, School of Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
| | - Tingchen Gong
- Department of Neuroscience, Physiology and Pharmacology, University College London, UK
| | - Hong Xu
- Psychology, School of Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
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2
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Diel A, Sato W, Hsu CT, Minato T. Asynchrony enhances uncanniness in human, android, and virtual dynamic facial expressions. BMC Res Notes 2023; 16:368. [PMID: 38082445 PMCID: PMC10714471 DOI: 10.1186/s13104-023-06648-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/05/2023] [Accepted: 11/30/2023] [Indexed: 12/18/2023] Open
Abstract
OBJECTIVE Uncanniness plays a vital role in interactions with humans and artificial agents. Previous studies have shown that uncanniness is caused by a higher sensitivity to deviation or atypicality in specialized categories, such as faces or facial expressions, marked by configural processing. We hypothesized that asynchrony, understood as a temporal deviation in facial expression, could cause uncanniness in the facial expression. We also hypothesized that the effect of asynchrony could be disrupted through inversion. RESULTS Sixty-four participants rated the uncanniness of synchronous or asynchronous dynamic face emotion expressions of human, android, or computer-generated (CG) actors, presented either upright or inverted. Asynchrony vs. synchrony expressions increased uncanniness for all upright expressions except for CG angry expressions. Inverted compared with upright presentations produced less evident asynchrony effects for human angry and android happy expressions. These results suggest that asynchrony can cause dynamic expressions to appear uncanny, which is related to configural processing but different across agents.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alexander Diel
- Cardiff University School of Psychology, Cardiff, UK.
- RIKEN Institute, Kyoto, Japan.
- Clinic for Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, LVR University Hospital Essen, University of Duisburg-Essen, 45147, Essen, Germany.
- Center for Translational Neuro- and Behavioral Sciences (C-TNBS), University of Duisburg- Essen, 45147, Essen, Germany.
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Krueger F, Mitchell KC, Deshpande G, Katz JS. Human-dog relationships as a working framework for exploring human-robot attachment: a multidisciplinary review. Anim Cogn 2021; 24:371-385. [PMID: 33486634 PMCID: PMC7826496 DOI: 10.1007/s10071-021-01472-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/15/2020] [Revised: 12/16/2020] [Accepted: 01/02/2021] [Indexed: 01/31/2023]
Abstract
Robotic agents will be life-long companions of humans in the foreseeable future. To achieve such successful relationships, people will likely attribute emotions and personality, assign social competencies, and develop a long-lasting attachment to robots. However, without a clear theoretical framework-building on biological, psychological, and technological knowledge-current societal demands for establishing successful human-robot attachment (HRA) as a new form of inter-species interactions might fail. The study of evolutionarily adaptive animal behavior (i.e., ethology) suggests that human-animal behaviors can be considered as a plausible solution in designing and building models of ethorobots-including modeling the inter-species bond between domesticated animals and humans. Evidence shows that people assign emotional feelings and personality characteristics to animal species leading to cooperation and communication-crucial for designing social robots such as companion robots. Because dogs have excellent social skills with humans, current research applies human-dog relationships as a template to understand HRA. Our goal of this article is twofold. First, we overview the research on how human-dog interactions are implemented as prototypes of non-human social companions in HRA. Second, we review research about attitudes that humans have for interacting with robotic dogs based on their appearance and behavior, the implications for forming attachments, and human-animal interactions in the rising sphere of robot-assisted therapy. The rationale for this review is to provide a new perspective to facilitate future research among biologists, psychologists, and engineers-contributing to the creation of innovative research practices for studying social behaviors and its implications for society addressing HRA.
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Affiliation(s)
- Frank Krueger
- School of Systems Biology, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA.
- Department of Psychology, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA.
- Institute for Biohealth Innovation, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA.
- Center for Adaptive Systems of Brain-Body Interactions, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA.
| | - Kelsey C Mitchell
- School of Systems Biology, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA
| | - Gopikrishna Deshpande
- Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, AU MRI Research Center, Auburn University, Auburn, AL, USA
- Department of Psychological Sciences, Auburn University, Auburn, AL, USA
- Center for Neuroscience, Auburn University, Auburn, AL, USA
- Alabama Advanced Imaging Consortium, Birmingham, AL, USA
- Key Laboratory for Learning and Cognition, School of Psychology, Capital Normal University, Beijing, China
- Department of Psychiatry, National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bengaluru, India
| | - Jeffrey S Katz
- Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, AU MRI Research Center, Auburn University, Auburn, AL, USA
- Department of Psychological Sciences, Auburn University, Auburn, AL, USA
- Center for Neuroscience, Auburn University, Auburn, AL, USA
- Alabama Advanced Imaging Consortium, Birmingham, AL, USA
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Nitta H, Hashiya K. Self-face perception in 12-month-old infants: A study using the morphing technique. Infant Behav Dev 2020; 62:101479. [PMID: 33333429 DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2020.101479] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/18/2019] [Revised: 07/12/2020] [Accepted: 08/03/2020] [Indexed: 01/10/2023]
Abstract
The present study investigated self-face perception in 12-month-old infants using the morphing technique. Twenty-four 12-month-old infants participated in both the main and control experiments. In the main experiment, we used the participant's own face, an unfamiliar infant's face (age- and gender-matched), and a morphed face comprising 50 % each of the self and unfamiliar faces as stimuli. The control experiment followed the same procedure, except that the self-face was replaced with another unfamiliar face. In both experiments, two of these stimuli were presented side by side on a monitor in each trial, and infants' fixation duration was measured. Results showed that shorter fixation durations were found for the morphed face compared with the self-face and the unfamiliar face in the main experiment, but there were no significant preferences for any comparisons in the control experiment. The results suggest that 12-month-old infants could detect subtle differences in facial features between the self-face and the other faces, and infants might show less preference for the self-resembling morphed face due to increased processing costs, which can be interpreted using the uncanny valley hypothesis. Overall, representations of the self-face seem to a certain extent to be formed by the end of the first year of life through daily visual experience.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hiroshi Nitta
- Graduate School of Human-Environment Studies, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan; Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Tokyo, Japan.
| | - Kazuhide Hashiya
- Faculty of Human-Environment Studies, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan
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Hirose J, Nishikawa A, Horiba Y, Inui S, Pataky TC. Integrated jerk as an indicator of affinity for artificial agent kinematics: laptop and virtual reality experiments involving index finger motion during two-digit grasping. PeerJ 2020; 8:e9843. [PMID: 32983641 PMCID: PMC7500322 DOI: 10.7717/peerj.9843] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/02/2020] [Accepted: 08/11/2020] [Indexed: 11/20/2022] Open
Abstract
Uncanny valley research has shown that human likeness is an important consideration when designing artificial agents. It has separately been shown that artificial agents exhibiting human-like kinematics can elicit positive perceptual responses. However the kinematic characteristics underlying that perception have not been elucidated. This paper proposes kinematic jerk amplitude as a candidate metric for kinematic human likeness, and aims to determine whether a perceptual optimum exists over a range of jerk values. We created minimum-jerk two-digit grasp kinematics in a prosthetic hand model, then added different amplitudes of temporally smooth noise to yield a variety of animations involving different total jerk levels, ranging from maximally smooth to highly jerky. Subjects indicated their perceptual affinity for these animations by simultaneously viewing two different animations side-by-side, first using a laptop, then separately within a virtual reality (VR) environment. Results suggest that (a) subjects generally preferred smoother kinematics, (b) subjects exhibited a small preference for rougher-than minimum jerk kinematics in the laptop experiment, and that (c) the preference for rougher-than minimum-jerk kinematics was amplified in the VR experiment. These results suggest that non-maximally smooth kinematics may be perceptually optimal in robots and other artificial agents.
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Affiliation(s)
- James Hirose
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Shinshu University, Ueda, Nagano, Japan
| | - Atsushi Nishikawa
- Department of Mechanical Science and Bioengineering, Osaka University, Suita, Osaka, Japan
| | - Yosuke Horiba
- Department of Advance Textile and Kansei Engineering, Shinshu University, Ueda, Nagano, Japan
| | - Shigeru Inui
- Department of Advance Textile and Kansei Engineering, Shinshu University, Ueda, Nagano, Japan
| | - Todd C Pataky
- Department of Human Health Sciences, Kyoto University, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto, Japan
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Abstract
BACKGROUND Due to declining birthrates and an increasing aging population, shortage of the caregiving labor force has become a global issue. Among various efforts toward the solution, introducing robotic products for assistance could provide an effective way to help older adults in their daily lives. As previous studies have indicated that older adults' acceptance of robots is lower than that of younger adults, enhancing older adults' acceptance of robots is imperative. Because older adults' first impressions based on a robot's appearance might affect their acceptance of the robot, we investigated the uncanny valley effect (UVE) here. The UVE refers to the phenomenon that people rate robots more positively as robots become more humanlike, but only up to a certain point; as robots approach a near-perfect similarity to human appearance, likeability drops and forms the uncanny valley. Nevertheless, evidence for the UVE came mainly from younger adults. OBJECTIVE The present study aimed to examine whether the UVE varies across different age groups and whether a robot's appearance would affect participants' acceptance of the robot's service or companionship. METHODS An online questionnaire study was conducted with 255 participants, including younger (n = 77, age 18-39 years), middle-aged (n = 87, age 40-59 years), and older (n = 91, age 60-87 years) adults. Participants were asked to view each picture in a set selected from a total of 83 robot pictures and evaluate their impressions of each robot and the intention of use regarding robot function as a service provider or a companion. RESULTS The UVE was found in younger and middle-aged adults; however, older adults did not show the UVE. Older adults preferred humanlike over non-humanlike robots, regardless of robot function. CONCLUSION The design of assistive robots should take the UVE into consideration by customizing robot appearance based on the age group of the intended user.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yun-Chen Tu
- Department of Psychology, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan
| | - Sung-En Chien
- Department of Psychology, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan
| | - Su-Ling Yeh
- Department of Psychology, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, .,Graduate Institute of Brain and Mind Sciences, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, .,Neurobiology and Cognitive Science Center, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, .,Center for Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Robotics, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, .,Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA,
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Schoenherr JR, Burleigh TJ. Dissociating affective and cognitive dimensions of uncertainty by altering regulatory focus. Acta Psychol (Amst) 2020; 205:103017. [PMID: 32229317 DOI: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2020.103017] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/06/2018] [Revised: 09/03/2019] [Accepted: 01/20/2020] [Indexed: 10/24/2022] Open
Abstract
Cognitive uncertainty is evidenced across learning, memory, and decision-making tasks. Uncertainty has also been examined in studies of positive affect and preference by manipulating stimulus presentation frequency. Despite the extensive research in both of these areas, there has been little systematic study into the relationship between affective and cognitive uncertainty. Using a categorization task, the present study examined changes in cognitive and affective uncertainty by manipulating stimulus presentation frequency and processing focus (i.e., promotion v. prevention focus). Following training, participants categorized stimuli and provided ratings of both typicality and negative affect. Results indicated that cognitive uncertainty was influenced by a categorical representation of stimuli whereas affective uncertainty was also influenced by exemplar presentation frequency during training. We additionally found that when the training was framed in terms of the avoidance of errors (i.e., a prevention focus), categorization performance was affected across the stimulus continuum whereas affective ratings remained unchanged.
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Buckingham G, Parr J, Wood G, Day S, Chadwell A, Head J, Galpin A, Kenney L, Kyberd P, Gowen E, Poliakoff E. Upper- and lower-limb amputees show reduced levels of eeriness for images of prosthetic hands. Psychon Bull Rev 2019; 26:1295-302. [PMID: 31183744 DOI: 10.3758/s13423-019-01612-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
Abstract
The "uncanny phenomenon" describes the feeling of unease associated with seeing an image that is close to appearing human. Prosthetic hands in particular are well known to induce this effect. Little is known, however, about this phenomenon from the viewpoint of prosthesis users. We studied perceptions of eeriness and human-likeness for images of different types of mechanical, cosmetic, and anatomic hands in upper-limb prosthesis users (n=9), lower-limb prosthesis users (n=10), prosthetists (n=16), control participants with no prosthetic training (n=20), and control participants who were trained to use a myoelectric prosthetic hand simulator (n=23). Both the upper- and lower-limb prosthesis user groups showed a reduced uncanny phenomenon (i.e., significantly lower levels of eeriness) for cosmetic prosthetic hands compared to the other groups, with no concomitant reduction in how these stimuli were rated in terms of human-likeness. However, a similar effect was found neither for prosthetists with prolonged visual experience of prosthetic hands nor for the group with short-term training with the simulator. These findings in the prosthesis users therefore seem likely to be related to limb absence or prolonged experience with prostheses.
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Olivera-La Rosa A, Arango-Tobón OE, Ingram GP. Swiping right: face perception in the age of Tinder. Heliyon 2019; 5:e02949. [PMID: 31872122 PMCID: PMC6909076 DOI: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2019.e02949] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/22/2019] [Revised: 11/18/2019] [Accepted: 11/25/2019] [Indexed: 11/26/2022] Open
Abstract
With an estimated 50 million or more users worldwide, Tinder has become one of the most popular mobile dating applications. Although judgments of physical attractiveness are assumed to drive the "swiping" decisions that lead to matches, we propose that there is an additional evaluative dimension driving behind these decisions: judgments of moral character. With the aim of adding empirical support for this proposition, we critically review the most striking findings about first impressions extracted from faces, moral character in person perception, creepiness, and the uncanny valley, as they apply to Tinder behavior. Drawing on this research and the evolutionary theory of biological markets, we formulate several hypotheses that offer directions for future studies of Tinder and other dating apps. We conclude that research on face perception of novel targets supports the plausibility of moral character as a potential factor affecting the swiping decisions and subsequent behavior of Tinder users.
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Affiliation(s)
- Antonio Olivera-La Rosa
- Department of Psychology and Social Sciences, Universidad Católica Luis Amigó. Transversal 514A #67B 90, Medellín, Colombia
- Human Evolution and Cognition Group, associated group to IFISC (University of the Balearic Islands – CSIC), Carr. de Valldemossa, km 7,5, Palma de Mallorca, 07122, Spain
| | - Olber Eduardo Arango-Tobón
- Department of Psychology and Social Sciences, Universidad Católica Luis Amigó. Transversal 514A #67B 90, Medellín, Colombia
| | - Gordon P.D. Ingram
- Department of Psychology, Universidad de Los Andes, Cra. 1 #18a-12, Bogotá, Colombia
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Dai Z, MacDorman KF. The doctor's digital double: how warmth, competence, and animation promote adherence intention. PeerJ Comput Sci 2018; 4:e168. [PMID: 33816821 PMCID: PMC7924424 DOI: 10.7717/peerj-cs.168] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/01/2018] [Accepted: 09/30/2018] [Indexed: 06/12/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Each year, patient nonadherence to treatment advice costs the US healthcare system more than $300 billion and results in 250,000 deaths. Developing virtual consultations to promote adherence could improve public health while cutting healthcare costs and usage. However, inconsistencies in the realism of computer-animated humans may cause them to appear eerie, a phenomenon termed the uncanny valley. Eeriness could reduce a virtual doctor's credibility and patients' adherence. METHODS In a 2 × 2 × 2 between-groups posttest-only experiment, 738 participants played the role of a patient in a hypothetical virtual consultation with a doctor. The consultation varied in the doctor's Character (good or poor bedside manner), Outcome (received a fellowship or sued for malpractice), and Depiction (a recorded video of a real human actor or of his 3D computer-animated double). Character, Outcome, and Depiction were designed to manipulate the doctor's level of warmth, competence, and realism, respectively. RESULTS Warmth and competence increased adherence intention and consultation enjoyment, but realism did not. On the contrary, the computer-animated doctor increased adherence intention and consultation enjoyment significantly more than the doctor portrayed by a human actor. We propose that enjoyment of the animated consultation caused the doctor to appear warmer and more real, compensating for his realism inconsistency. Expressed as a path model, this explanation fit the data. DISCUSSION The acceptance and effectiveness of the animation should encourage the development of virtual consultations, which have advantages over creating content with human actors including ease of scenario revision, internationalization, localization, personalization, and web distribution.
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Urgen BA, Kutas M, Saygin AP. Uncanny valley as a window into predictive processing in the social brain. Neuropsychologia 2018; 114:181-185. [PMID: 29704523 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2018.04.027] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/29/2017] [Revised: 04/23/2018] [Accepted: 04/24/2018] [Indexed: 10/17/2022]
Abstract
Uncanny valley refers to humans' negative reaction to almost-but-not-quite-human agents. Theoretical work proposes prediction violation as an explanation for uncanny valley but no empirical work has directly tested it. Here, we provide evidence that supports this theory using event-related brain potential recordings from the human scalp. Human subjects were presented images and videos of three agents as EEG was recorded: a real human, a mechanical robot, and a realistic robot in between. The real human and the mechanical robot had congruent appearance and motion whereas the realistic robot had incongruent appearance and motion. We hypothesize that the appearance of the agent would provide a context to predict her movement, and accordingly the perception of the realistic robot would elicit an N400 effect indicating the violation of predictions, whereas the human and the mechanical robot would not. Our data confirmed this hypothesis suggesting that uncanny valley could be explained by violation of one's predictions about human norms when encountered with realistic but artificial human forms. Importantly, our results implicate that the mechanisms underlying perception of other individuals in our environment are predictive in nature.
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Affiliation(s)
- Burcu A Urgen
- Department of Cognitive Science, UC San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, 92093 La Jolla, CA, United States; Department of Medicine and Surgery, University of Parma, Via Volturno 39, 43125 Parma, Italy.
| | - Marta Kutas
- Department of Cognitive Science, UC San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, 92093 La Jolla, CA, United States; Neurosciences Program, UC San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, 92093 La Jolla, CA, United States
| | - Ayse P Saygin
- Department of Cognitive Science, UC San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, 92093 La Jolla, CA, United States; Neurosciences Program, UC San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, 92093 La Jolla, CA, United States
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Sanders JG, Ueda Y, Minemoto K, Noyes E, Yoshikawa S, Jenkins R. Hyper-realistic face masks: a new challenge in person identification. Cogn Res Princ Implic 2017; 2:43. [PMID: 29104914 PMCID: PMC5655619 DOI: 10.1186/s41235-017-0079-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/13/2017] [Accepted: 09/25/2017] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
We often identify people using face images. This is true in occupational settings such as passport control as well as in everyday social environments. Mapping between images and identities assumes that facial appearance is stable within certain bounds. For example, a person’s apparent age, gender and ethnicity change slowly, if at all. It also assumes that deliberate changes beyond these bounds (i.e., disguises) would be easy to spot. Hyper-realistic face masks overturn these assumptions by allowing the wearer to look like an entirely different person. If unnoticed, these masks break the link between facial appearance and personal identity, with clear implications for applied face recognition. However, to date, no one has assessed the realism of these masks, or specified conditions under which they may be accepted as real faces. Herein, we examined incidental detection of unexpected but attended hyper-realistic masks in both photographic and live presentations. Experiment 1 (UK; n = 60) revealed no evidence for overt detection of hyper-realistic masks among real face photos, and little evidence of covert detection. Experiment 2 (Japan; n = 60) extended these findings to different masks, mask-wearers and participant pools. In Experiment 3 (UK and Japan; n = 407), passers-by failed to notice that a live confederate was wearing a hyper-realistic mask and showed limited evidence of covert detection, even at close viewing distance (5 vs. 20 m). Across all of these studies, viewers accepted hyper-realistic masks as real faces. Specific countermeasures will be required if detection rates are to be improved.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | | | - Eilidh Noyes
- Department of Psychology, University of York, Heslington, York, YO10 5DD UK
| | | | - Rob Jenkins
- Department of Psychology, University of York, Heslington, York, YO10 5DD UK
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Kawabe T, Sasaki K, Ihaya K, Yamada Y. When categorization-based stranger avoidance explains the uncanny valley: A comment on MacDorman and Chattopadhyay (2016). Cognition 2016; 161:129-131. [PMID: 27642031 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2016.09.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/21/2015] [Revised: 08/30/2016] [Accepted: 09/08/2016] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
Abstract
Artificial objects often subjectively look eerie when their appearance to some extent resembles a human, which is known as the uncanny valley phenomenon. From a cognitive psychology perspective, several explanations of the phenomenon have been put forth, two of which are object categorization and realism inconsistency. Recently, MacDorman and Chattopadhyay (2016) reported experimental data as evidence in support of the latter. In our estimation, however, their results are still consistent with categorization-based stranger avoidance. In this Discussions paper, we try to describe why categorization-based stranger avoidance remains a viable explanation, despite the evidence of MacDorman and Chattopadhyay, and how it offers a more inclusive explanation of the impression of eeriness in the uncanny valley phenomenon.
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Affiliation(s)
- Takahiro Kawabe
- NTT Communication Science Laboratories, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation, Japan.
| | - Kyoshiro Sasaki
- Faculty of Arts and Science, Kyushu University, Japan; Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Japan
| | | | - Yuki Yamada
- Faculty of Arts and Science, Kyushu University, Japan
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Piwek L, McKay LS, Pollick FE. Empirical evaluation of the uncanny valley hypothesis fails to confirm the predicted effect of motion. Cognition 2013; 130:271-7. [PMID: 24374019 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2013.11.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 53] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/31/2012] [Revised: 09/24/2013] [Accepted: 11/01/2013] [Indexed: 10/25/2022]
Abstract
The uncanny valley hypothesis states that the acceptability of an artificial character will not increase linearly in relation to its likeness to human form. Instead, after an initial rise in acceptability there will be a pronounced decrease when the character is similar, but not identical to human form (Mori, 1970/2012). Moreover, it has been claimed but never directly tested that movement would accentuate this dip and make moving characters less acceptable. We used a number of full-body animated computer characters along with a parametrically defined motion set to examine the effect of motion quality on the uncanny valley. We found that improving the motion quality systematically improved the acceptability of the characters. In particular, the character classified in the deepest location of the uncanny valley became more acceptable when it was animated. Our results showed that although an uncanny valley was found for static characters, the deepening of the valley with motion, originally predicted by Mori (1970/2012), was not obtained.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lukasz Piwek
- University of Glasgow, School of Psychology, Glasgow, UK
| | - Lawrie S McKay
- Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
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