Universal Principles of Design, Revised and Updated

Uncanny Valley

Anthropomorphic forms are appealing when they are dissimilar or identical to humans, but unappealing when they are very similar to humans.

Anthropomorphic forms are generally appealing to humans. However, when a form is very close but not identical to a healthy human — as with a mannequin or computer-generated renderings of people — the form tends to become distinctly unappealing. This sharp decline in appeal is called the “uncanny valley,” a reference to the large valley or dip in the now classic graph presented by Masahiro Mori in 1970.1 Though some have disputed the existence of the effect altogether, attributing any negative affective response to a simple lack of familiarity with artificial and rendered likenesses, more recent ...