Uncanny Speech - Game Sound Technology and Player Interaction: Concepts and Developments - page 220

al. (2008) observed that a robot is eeriest when
a human-like appearance creates an expectation
of a human form when non human-like elements
fail to deliver to expectations. Also, a mismatch
in the human-likeness of different features for a
robot, for example, a nonhuman-like skin texture
combined with human-like hair and teeth, elicited
an uncanny sensation for the viewer.
With regards to virtual characters it has been
suggested that a high graphical fidelity for realistic
human-like characters raises expectations for the
character's behavioural fidelity (Bailenson et al.,
2005; Brenton et al., 2005; Vinayagamoorthy et
al., 2005). Any discrepancies from the human-
norm with how a character spoke or moved would
appear odd. For humanoid or anthropomorphic
characters with a lower fidelity of human-likeness
(for example, Mario or Sonic the Hedgehog ),
differences from the human-norm would be
more acceptable to the viewer: Expectations are
lowered based on the more stylized and iconic
appearance for that character. Despite seemingly
strange behaviour with jerky movements or a
less than human-like voice, the viewer will still
develop a positive affinity with the character.
Empirical evidence implies that humanoid and
anthropomorphic type characters do escape the
valley dip as Mori predicted, being placed before
the first peak in the valley (Tinwell, 2009; Tinwell
& Grimshaw, 2009).
Evidence shows that for virtual characters
(and robots) a perceived mismatch in the human-
likeness for a character's voice based on that
character's appearance exaggerates the uncanny.
As part of the Uncanny Modality survey (Tinwell
& Grimshaw, 2010), 100 participants rated how
human-like the character's voice sounded and how
human-like the facial expression appeared using a
scale from 1 ( nonhuman-like ) to 9 ( very human-
like ). Strong relationships were identified between
the uncanny and perceived human-likeness for a
character's voice and facial expression. The less
human-like the voice sounded, the more strange
the character was regarded to be. Uncanniness

also increased for a character the less human-like
the facial expression appeared.
Laurel (1993) suggests that to achieve har-
mony, there is an expectation for the sensory
modalities of image and sound to have the same
resolution. So that there is accord between visual
appearance and behaviour for virtual characters we
put forward that the degree of fidelity of human-
likeness for a character's voice should match that
character's appearance, or otherwise risk discord
for that character. To avoid the uncanny, attention
should be given to the fidelity of human-likeness
for a character's voice in accordance with that
character's appearance. For high fidelity human-
like characters it is expected that that character
should have a human-like voice of a resolution
that matches their realistic, human-like appear-
ance. However for mechanical-looking robots, a
less human-like and more mechanical-sounding
voice is preferable. The humanoid robot Robovie
was intentionally given a mechanical sounding
voice so that it appeared more natural to the
viewer (Kanda et al., 2004). A voice that was too
human-like may have been regarded as unnatural
based on the robot's appearance, thus exaggerating
the uncanny for the robot.
To test the Uncanny Valley theory with virtual
characters, it has been suggested that it is not
necessary to include characters from computer
games as the level of realism achieved from gaming
environments generated in real-time is less than
that achieved for animation and film (Brenton et
al., 2005). Some characters created for television
and film have been proclaimed as overcoming
the Uncanny Valley: In 2008, Plantec hailed the
character Emily as finally having done so.
Walker, of Image Metrics, states that whilst
computer games would benefit from these more
realistically rendered faces, it is not yet possible
to achieve the same high level of polygon counts
for in-game play as achieved for television and
film due to technical restrictions: “We can produce
Emily-quality animation for games as well, but