The uncanny advantage of using androids in cognitive and social science research

Abstract

The development of robots that closely resemble human beings can contribute to cognitive research. An android provides an experimental apparatus that has the potential to be controlled more precisely than any human actor. However, preliminary results indicate that only very humanlike devices can elicit the broad range of responses that people typically direct toward each other. Conversely, to build androids capable of emulating human behavior, it is necessary to investigate social activity in detail and to develop models of the cognitive mechanisms that support this activity. Because of the reciprocal relationship between android development and the exploration of social mechanisms, it is necessary to establish the field of android science. Androids could be a key testing ground for social, cognitive, and neuroscientific theories as well as platform for their eventual unification. Nevertheless, subtle flaws in appearance and movement can be more apparent and eerie in very humanlike robots. This uncanny phenomenon may be symptomatic of entities that elicit our model of human other but do not measure up to it. If so, very humanlike robots may provide the best means of pinpointing what kinds of behavior are perceived as human, since deviations from human norms are more obvious in them than in more mechanical-looking robots. In pursuing this line of inquiry, it is essential to identify the mechanisms involved in evaluations of human likeness. One hypothesis is that, by playing on an innate fear of death, an uncanny robot elicits culturally-supported defense responses for coping with death’s inevitability. An experiment, which borrows from methods used in terror management research, was performed to test this hypothesis. [Thomson Reuters Essential Science Indicators: Fast Breaking Paper in Social Sciences, May 2008]

Robots in Education and Care of Children with Developmental Disabilities: A Study on Acceptance by Experienced and Future Professionals

“…This result on children's perceptions of the robots' behavioural intentions provided tentative empirical support for the Uncanny Valley, hypothesized by Mori [49]. The Uncanny Valley is a phenomenon in the field of aesthetics which affirms that when features look like, but not exactly, natural beings, this may generate a response of repulsion among some observers [50].…”

Monkey visual behavior falls into the uncanny valley

“…Understanding the features that exceed this tolerance threshold is a topic of intense investigation, particularly for those investigators interested in human-robot interactions and computer-animated avatar technology (4,7). One likely possibility is that the computeranimated faces simply cannot capture all of the rapid and subtle movements of the face, and thus, there is an expectancy violation when looking at realistically-rendered faces (6). Although facial dynamics are certainly important to primate social perception and neurobiology (25), our data suggest that they do not seem to be the sole driving force or even a prominent one [contra Mori (1)].…”

“…There are many hypotheses, and a good number of them invoke evolved mechanisms of perception (2,6). For example, one explanation for the uncanny valley is that it is the outcome of a mechanism for pathogen avoidance.…”

Benchmarks for evaluating socially assistive robotics

“…Further, is has been implied that anthropomorphism has a negative influence on social interaction when the robot's behavior does not meet a user's expectations (Shneiderman, 1989). The "uncanny valley" hypothesis suggests that as a robot becomes very similar in appearance to a human, that robot appears less, rather than more, familiar (Mori, 1970;MacDorman & Ishiguro, 2006). Physical similarity or an attempt at very faithful humanlike imitation of behavior could cause such discord.…”