Abstract
Empirical studies have established that our affinity towards a synthetic agent does not
increase when the agent is crafted with the intention to persuade us that it is human in its
appearance and behaviour (MacDorman, 2005; MacDorman & Entezari, this volume). This
increased negative affective response to a human-like agent was presumed a universal
corollary, as the agent failed to satisfy our expectations of normal human behaviour (Mori,
1970/2012). Visualization tasks in infants of up to 12 months old (Lewkowicz & Ghazanfar,
2012) and monkeys (Steckenfinger & Ghazanfar, 2009), on normal to synthetic faces, lend
support that uncanniness is evolutionary in origin. Therefore, as well as developing traits that
make us more discerning of human-like agents, we are born with instinctive behaviours to
reject uncanny agents. MacDorman and Entezari (this volume) explored the superficial traits
in healthy individuals that may exaggerate perception of the uncanny, yet, perception of the
uncanny may also be considered from a less cursory to a more fundamental basis in humans
that negate the human norm. As well as having established how particular traits may
exaggerate the uncanny in individuals, the findings in MacDorman and Entezari’s (this
volume) paper may be considered from another perspective, to consider which particular
biological and learned traits may render an individual devoid of experience of the uncanny.