The Uncanny Valley in Games and Animation

99

Chapter 5

Applying Psychological

Plausibility to the

Uncanny Valley

T

   I     on the uncanny and

aberrant facial expression in human- like virtual characters raised

intriguing questions as to the possible psychological cause of the Uncanny

Valley. e results of an experiment described in the last chapter showed

that the uncanny was found to be strongest in realistic, human- like male

characters with a lack of movement in the upper face including the eyelids,

eyebrows and forehead when compared with male characters with full

facial animation or humans (Tinwell et al., 2011). is eect was particu-

larly strong for characters communicating fear and surprise since with-

out upper facial movement the salience of these emotions was reduced.

Although this work provided guidance as to how the design of characters’

facial expression may be improved to reduce uncanniness across dierent

emotion types, the psychological drivers of the uncanny experience were

still not fully explained. ese results led me to question whether aberrant

facial expression in a character may trigger possible psychological pro-

cesses that underpin the existence of the Uncanny Valley. Furthermore,

what specic personality traits may be perceived in an uncanny character

with a lack of emotional expressivity in the upper face that may evoke a

negative response in the viewer?

100 ◾ The Uncanny Valley in Games and Animation

In this chapter, I rst consider possible psychological explanations of

the Uncanny Valley that other researchers have proposed, including a

reminder of death (see, e.g., Mori, 1970/2012), perception of a threat (Kang,

2009), and an inability to empathize with a human- like agent (Misselhorn,

2009). Empathy has been dened as one of the unique qualities that con-

stitute humanness and makes us human (Hogan, 1969). As such, being

human is characterized by the ability to understand the cognitive and

emotive processes of others and show tenderness, compassion and sym-

pathy toward them, especially for the suering or distressed. Given the

importance of empathy in eective social interaction and previous works

that suggest potential psychological explanations of uncanniness, I began

to formulate a new hypothesis as an explanation for experience of the

uncanny in human- like virtual characters. My hypothesis was based on

a potential perception of psychopathic traits in a character and a lack of

empathy in that character toward us (Tinwell, Abdel- Nabi and Charlton,

2013). To test this, in 2013 I conducted an experiment with psychologists

Dr.Deborah Abdel- Nabi and Dr.John Charlton at the University of Bolton

to explore which antisocial negative personality traits may be associated

with uncanny human- like characters with aberrant facial expression and

if a perception of psychopathy may be directly related to uncanniness. As

well as considering the role of empathy in social interaction and specic

physiognomic markers that signal a lack of empathy in an individual, this

chapter provides an overview of the design, results and conclusions drawn

from that empirical study. is previous study just focused on actors

and videos of human- like video game characters within the age group of

young adults. erefore, in this chapter I also expand on how a perception

of antisocial traits may aect characters intended to be perceived as empa-

thetic of diering age groups in both animation and games. Last, I discuss

how negative neurotic personality traits not associated with psychopathy

may actually increase one’s anity toward the character, as one perceives

them as more human and less of a controlled automaton.

5.1 PREVIOUS PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS

OF THE UNCANNY VALLEY

In his original paper, Mori (1970/2012) theorized that we are equipped

with the ability to experience the uncanny as an alert to possible proximal

danger. In other words, it serves as a function to warn us of danger in close

proximity rather than more distant sources of danger such as storms and

hazardous weather.