The uncanny valley does not interfere with level 1 visual perspective taking

Abstract

When a computer-animated human character looks eerily realistic, viewers report a loss of empathy; they have difficulty taking the character’s perspective. To explain this perspective-taking impairment, known as the uncanny valley, a novel theory is proposed: The more human or less eerie a character looks, the more it interferes with level 1 visual perspective taking when the character’s perspective differs from that of the human observer (e.g., because the character competitively activates shared circuits in the observer’s brain). The proposed theory is evaluated in three experiments involving a dot-counting task in which participants either assumed or ignored the perspective of characters varying in their human photorealism and eeriness. Although response times and error rates were lower when the number of dots faced by the observer and character were the same (congruent condition) than when they were different (incongruent condition), no consistent pattern emerged between the human photorealism or eeriness of the characters and participants’ response times and error rates. Thus, the proposed theory is unsupported for level 1 visual perspective taking. As the effects of the uncanny valley on empathy have not previously been investigated systematically, these results provide evidence to eliminate one possible explanation.

The Interactive Effects of Robot Anthropomorphism and Robot Ability on Perceived Threat and Support for Robotics Research

“…Several explanations have been proposed as to why people reject highly-humanlike robots. These include neurological explanation (Saygin, Chaminade, Ishiguro, Driver, & Firth, 2012), perception of experience (Gray & Wegner, 2012), empathy (MacDorman, Srinivas, & Patel, 2013), threat avoidance (Mori, 1970), and terror management (MacDorman & Ishiguro, 2006).…”

“…Several explanations have been proposed as to why people reject highly-humanlike robots. These include neurological explanation (Saygin, Chaminade, Ishiguro, Driver, & Firth, 2012), perception of experience (Gray & Wegner, 2012), empathy (MacDorman, Srinivas, & Patel, 2013), threat avoidance (Mori, 1970), and terror management (MacDorman & Ishiguro, 2006).How does the physical anthropomorphism of a robot impact people's attitudes toward it? People tend to build robots with more humanlike features as they facilitate human-robot interaction (Fasola & Mataric, 2012; Feil-Seifer & Mataric, 2011; Guillian et al, 2010; Wade, Parnandi, & Mataric, 2011).…”

Interactive Realistic Digital Avatars - Revisiting the Uncanny Valley

“…The inference MacDorman et al [24] make is that these findings suggest that a character's human photorealism does not affect brain processes and interfere with the ability to see another's perspective. This effectively tested causes of the Uncanny Valley.…”

“…They outline a series of experiments to investigate if higher realism enhances one's ability to take the perspective of a character. They suggest this might be so, because of increased activation of mirror neurons [24].…”

“…MacDorman et al [24] state that strong "anecdotal evidence indicates the Uncanny Valley suppresses empathy", citing many such studies. The authors theorise that this is related to mirror neurons.…”