Evaluation of the uncanny valley hypothesis based on declared emotional response and psychophysiological reaction

Abstract

The uncanny valley (UV) hypothesis suggests that the observation of almost human-like characters causes an increase of discomfort. We conducted a study using self-report questionnaire, response time measurement, and electrodermal activity (EDA) evaluation. In the study, 12 computer-generated characters (robots, androids, animated, and human characters) were presented to 33 people (17 women) to (1) test the effect of a background context on the perception of characters, (2) establish whether there is a relation between declared feelings and physiological arousal, and (3) detect the valley of the presented stimuli. The findings provide support for reverse relation between human-likeness and the arousal (EDA). Furthermore, a positive correlation between EDA and human-likeness appraisal reaction time upholds one of the most common explanations of the UV – the categorization ambiguity. The absence of the significant relationship between declared comfort and EDA advocates the necessity of physiological measures for UV studies.

Journey through a virtual tunnel: Simulated motion and its effects on the experience of time

“…This is called the 'proteus effect' (Peña et al, 2009;Banakou et al, 2013). While full-body embodiment allows for more experimental control, it may create an uncanny valley effect (Ratajczyk et al, 2019) or it can be a distractor itself. Kilteni et al (2012) identified the 'feeling of selflocalization,' 'sense of agency,' and the 'sense of body ownership' as the main influencing components of the illusion of virtual body ownership.…”

Towards the standardised set of stimuli for the uncanny valley phenomenon studies

“…For the comfort dimension, we compare the results of Łupkowski et al, 2019) and (Ratajczyk et al, 2019) (laboratory condition; N=107) with (Łupkowski, Gierszewska, 2019) (online condition; N=100).…”

“…Mann-Whitney U test results (with Benjamini-Hochberg correction for multiple comparisons). In two of the analysed studies (Ratajczyk et al, 2019) and (Łupkowski, Kulinski, 2020), the procedure included the measurement of the time taken in providing answers to questionnaire questions (N=73, laboratory condition). This measurement allows us to test whether we would observe a correlation between the time taken providing the answer to the question about human-likeness and the evaluation provided in the answer.…”

“…The context condition of the set was studied in (Łupkowski et al, 2019) and (Ratajczyk et al, 2019). For these experiments, two sets of stimuli were prepared: (A) models on a neutral background (an empty room with uniformly coloured greyish walls); and (B) models on a background that was suitable for the given model.…”

The More You See Me the More You Like Me. Influencing the Negative Attitude Towards Interactions With Robots

“…study of interaction with Geminoid HI-1 humanoid robot presented in [1]). Uncanny Valley is also observed and studied for computer generated characters in games and animated productions (see [4], [9], [11], [22]). HRI studies of people's attitudes towards robots address also social issues related to robots.…”