Uncanny Valley

[kimmy]

I first heard the phrase "Uncanny Valley" in a movie review of "Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles" by Eli Glasner. Glasner felt that the titular Turtles were neither realistic enough to be believable, nor unrealistic enough to put the viewer at ease. Instead, Glasner felt that the Turtles fell into a troubling Twilight Zone of perception, where the viewers instincts perceive that something is "off", putting the viewer in a sense of elevated anxiety as they sense a trick or trap.
The movie "Polar Express" is another movie that has been described as falling into the Uncanny Valley. I imagine the CGI "Beowolf" movie of a few years ago is another.

The phrase "Uncanny Valley" was coined some time ago, by a Japanese roboticist. Google the term and you get this explanation:

1970s: from a translation of Japanese Bukimi no Tani Genshō, coined by the roboticist Masahiro Moti, who created a graph that plotted the emotional response of a human being to a robot against the increase in the perceived realism of a robot; the graph showed a significant dip at the point where the robot's resemblance to a human is perceived to be almost exact.

...

used in reference to the phenomenon whereby a computer-generated figure or humanoid robot bearing a near-identical resemblance to a human being arouses a sense of unease or revulsion in the person viewing it.

"anyone attempting to build a believable human facsimile also has to beware of the uncanny valley"

This helpful image illustrates Masahiro Moti's graph.

Which brings us to Nadine the robot. Nadine is envisioned as sort of a robotic companion, a Siri or Cortana that you can interact with as if it were a real person instead of a phone.

Unfortunately, the results are blood-curdling. Nadine perfectly illustrates the concept that Moti described some 40 years ago.

-k

[Guest]

Interesting. The animation in Polar Express does bother me. Now I want to check out Beowulf and the new Turtle's flick just to see if I experience the same feeling.

[Hydraboss]

Beowulf will likely give you the same "uhm, I think that guy's animated!" feeling.

That is still one of the best charts on the net

[Moonlight Graham]

"Uncanny valley" is a really cool-sounding term.

I find "uncanny valleys" more fascinating to look at than disturbing. Polar Express was really neat to watch for me.

There's a last-generation detective video game by developers Rockstar that came out in 2011 called L.A. Noire that features frighteningly realistic motion-capture for its in-game characters (especially their faces) using amazing technology. Rockstar used the technology because as a detective you're constantly questioning/interrogating people to solve crimes, so in order to tell f someone is lying or not they needed to create this technology. Every little eye twitch, mouth movement, any expression whatsoever in the face is replicated amazingly, yet the textures still aren't 100% realistic so it still hits the "uncanny valley":

Then there's tech demos like this: