Uncanny Speech - Game Sound Technology and Player Interaction: Concepts and Developments - page 219

less uncanny over time as one grows used to a
particular object. Brenton et al. (2005) give the
example of the life-like sculpture The Jogger by
Duane Hanson: The sculpture will appear “less
uncanny the second time that it is viewed because
you are expecting it and have pre-classified it as a
dead object”. The effect of habituation may also
apply to those with regular exposure to realistic
human-like virtual characters. 3D modellers work-
ing with this type of character or gamers with
an advanced level of gaming experience may be
less able to detect flaws within a particular char-
acter because they had grown accustomed to the
appearance and behaviour for that character by
interacting with it on a regular basis (Brenton, et
al., 2005). Recent empirical evidence goes against
this theory. The results from a study by Tinwell
and Grimshaw (2009) showed that the level of
experience for both playing computer games
and of using 3D modelling software made little
difference in detecting uncanniness. (Judgements
for those with an advanced level of experience for
perceived familiarity and human-likeness had no
significant difference between those with lesser
or no experience.)
Tinwell and Grimshaw suggest it may never
be possible to overcome the Uncanny Valley as a
viewer's discernment for detecting subtle nuances
from the human norm keeps pace with develop-
ments in technology for creating realism. With a
lack of empirical evidence to support the notion
of an Uncanny Valley, the notion of an Uncanny
Wall may be more appropriate (see Figure 2).
Viewers who may at first have been “wowed” by
the apparent realism of characters such as Quantic
Dream's Mary Smith (2006) or characters in ani-
mation such as Beowulf (Zemeckis, 2007) or The
Polar Express ( Zemeckis, 2004), soon developed
the skills to detect discrepancies for such charac-
ters' appearance and behaviour. Indeed, as soon as
the next technological breakthrough in achieving
realism is released, a viewer may be reminded of
the flaws for a character that at first did not seem
uncanny. In addition to the meaning of uncanny

as used in the Uncanny Wall hypothesis being an
exposition of the first Freudian sense of heimlich/
unheimlich as described above, the undesired
unmasking of the technological processes used in
the production of a character, and the perception
of those processes as flaws in the presentation
of that character, allows us simultaneously and
without contradiction to use the second meaning
of heimlich : that which should remain out of sight.
The concept of the Uncanny Wall (as opposed to
the Uncanny Valley which always holds out the
hope for a successful traversal to the far side),
evokes a variety of myths, legends and modern
stories (Frankenstein's monster, for example, or
the Golem) in which beings created by man are
condemned to forever remain pale shades of those
created by gods.
Further studies would be required to provide
evidence for the Uncanny Wall to substantiate
the hypothesis that the Uncanny Valley is an
impossible surmount for realistic, human-like
virtual characters. As soon as the next character
is released, announced as having overcome the
Uncanny Valley, we intend to conduct another
test using the same characters as in the previous
experiment. If those characters previously rated
as close to escaping the valley, such as Emily (Im-
age Metrics, 2008), are placed beneath the new
character as perceived strangeness increases, our
prediction may be justified. In the meantime, a
conceptual guide for uncanny motion and sound
in virtual characters may be beneficial in aiding
computer game developers to manipulate the
degree of uncanniness.

crOss-MODAL MIsMAtcH

For androids, if a human-like appearance causes
us to evaluate an android's behaviour from a hu-
man standard, we are more likely to be aware of
disparities from human norms (MacDorman &
Ishiguro, 2006; Matsui, Minato, MacDorman, &
Ishiguro, H., 2005; Minato et al., 2004). Ho et