Uncanny Speech - Game Sound Technology and Player Interaction: Concepts and Developments - page 216

Figure 1. A diagram to demonstrate Mori's plot of perceived familiarity against human-likeness as the
Uncanny Valley (taken from a translation by MacDorman and Minato of Mori's 'The Uncanny Valley')

Previous Investigation into
the Uncanny Valley

virtual characters. Schneider et al. investigated
the relationship between human-like appearance
and attraction with the results indicating that the
safest combination for a character designer seems
to be a clearly non-human appearance with the
ability to emote like a human.
Hanson (2006) conducted an experiment using
still images of robots across a spectrum of human-
likeness. An image of a human was morphed to
an android on one half of the spectrum and then
the android to a mechanical-looking, humanoid
robot on the other half. The results depicted an
uncanny region between the mechanical-looking,
humanoid robot and the android. In a second
experiment, Hanson found that it was possible to
remove the uncanny region within the same plot,
where it had previously existed, by changing the
appearance of the android's features to a more
“cartoonish” and friendly appearance.
However the results from these experiments
only provide a somewhat limited interpretation
of perceived uncanniness based on inert (unre-
sponsive) still images. Most characters used in
animation and computer games are not stationary,
with motion, timing and facial animation being the
main factors contributing to the Uncanny Valley

Since Mori's original theory of the Uncanny Val-
ley over thirty years ago, the increasing realism
possible for virtual characters and androids has
sparked a renewed interest in the phenomenon
(Green, MacDorman, Ho, & Vasudevan, 2008;
Pollick, in press; Steckenfinger & Ghazanfar,
2009). However, there have been few empirical
studies conducted to support the claims of uncanny
virtual characters and androids evident within new
media (Bartneck, Kanda, Ishiguro, & Hagita, 2009;
MacDorman and Ishiguro, 2006; Pollick, in press;
Steckenfinger & Ghazanfar, 2009).
Still images of both virtual characters and
robots have been used for experiments investi-
gating the Uncanny Valley. Design guidelines
have been authored to help realistic, human-like,
characters escape from the valley (for example,
Green et al., 2008; MacDorman, Green, Ho, &
Koch, 2009; Schneider, Wang & Yang, 2007;
Seyama & Nagayama, 2007). MacDorman et al.
focused on how facial proportions, skin texture
and how levels of detail affect the perceived
eeriness, human likeness, and attractiveness of