Angela Tinwell

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.

•We examine children’s perception of the Uncanny Valley in human-like characters.•Nine- to 11-year-olds do experience the uncanny in human-like virtual characters.•Uncanniness was exaggerated in characters with a lack of upper facial expression.•A startled facial expression was more prone to uncanniness than a happy expression.
The Uncanny Valley phenomenon predicts that humans will be less accepting, to the point of rejection, of synthetic agents with a human-like appearance. This is due to a perception of a strangeness or difference in how those characters look and behave from the human norm. Virtual characters with a human-like appearance are increasingly being used in children’s animation and video games. While studies have been conducted in adult perception of the Uncanny Valley in human-like virtual characters, little work exists that explores children’s perception of “uncanniness” in human-like virtual characters. Sixty-seven children between 9 and 11years of age rated humans and human-like virtual characters showing different facial expressions for perceived strangeness, friendliness, and human-likeness. The results showed that children do experience uncanniness in human-like virtual characters, perceived as stranger, less friendly, and less human-like than humans. This perception of the uncanny was exaggerated further in human-like characters with aberrant facial expression. That is, when showing a startled expression and/or happiness with a lack of movement in the upper face including the eyes, eyebrows, and forehead. The possible implications of including human-like virtual characters in animation and video games for this age group are discussed.

This article describes a case study of the process, implementation, delivery and outcomes of a half-day workshop designed to improve the transition from further education (FE) to higher education (HE) for new first-year students studying on a Games Art undergraduate degree programme. Held in student induction week, the purpose of the workshop was to: spark initial interest and motivation in research activities relevant to the student's subject area of Games Art; enhance the first-year student experience, and; to assist retention of students, especially at first-year level. As a work in progress, this workshop is part of a larger university wide project to improve the first-year student experience, raise standards in research and scholarship, and aid retention. The implications of this workshop as a preliminary activity to work towards the continued increase of academic standards and confidence in research is discussed, also if this workshop may be used as a model across other subject areas and in other institutions.

► We examine viewer perception of psychopathic traits and the uncanny in characters. ► Characters that showed a lack of a startle response were rated as most uncanny. ► Personality traits associated with psychopathy did predict reported uncanniness.
Virtual characters with a realistic, human-like appearance are increasingly being used in video games and animation. However, increased realism does not necessarily imply increased acceptance and factors such as aberrant facial expression may evoke the Uncanny Valley phenomenon. In humans, personality traits such as anger, callousness, coldness, dominance, being unconcerned, and untrustworthiness are associated with psychopathy; a visual facial marker of this condition being a lack of visible response in the eye region to emotive situations. As such, the present study investigated if inadequate upper facial animation in human-like virtual characters evoked the uncanny due to a perception of psychopathic traits within a character. The results revealed that virtual characters that showed a lack of a startle response to a scream sound were regarded as most uncanny and perceptions of personality traits associated with psychopathy were a strong predictor of reported uncanniness but, that other negative personality traits not associated with psychopathy were not. The study presents possible psychological drivers of uncanniness to inform designers why a lack of detail in a character’s upper face when portraying a startle response may evoke perception of specific negative personality traits in a character, to help control the uncanny in character design.

With technology allowing for increased realism in video games, realistic, human-like characters risk falling into the Uncanny Valley. The Uncanny Valley phenomenon implies that virtual characters approaching full human-likeness will evoke a negative reaction from the viewer, due to aspects of the character’s appearance and behavior differing from the human norm. This study investigates if “uncanniness” is increased for a character with a perceived lack of facial expression in the upper parts of the face. More important, our study also investigates if the magnitude of this increased uncanniness varies depending on which emotion is being communicated. Individual parameters for each facial muscle in a 3D model were controlled for the six emotions: anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness and surprise in addition to a neutral expression. The results indicate that even fully and expertly animated characters are rated as more uncanny than humans and that, in virtual characters, a lack of facial expression in the upper parts of the face during speech exaggerates the uncanny by inhibiting effective communication of the perceived emotion, significantly so for fear, sadness, disgust, and surprise but not for anger and happiness. Based on our results, we consider the implications for virtual character design.

This paper proposes that increasing technological sophistication in the creation of realism for human-like, virtual characters is matched by increasing technological discernment on the part of the viewer. One of the goals for achieving a realism that is believable for virtual characters is to overcome the Uncanny Valley where perceived strangeness or familiarity is rated against perceived human-likeness. Empirical evidence shows the uncanny can be applied to virtual characters, yet implies a more complex picture than the shape of a deep valley with a sharp gradient as depicted in Mori's original plot of the Uncanny Valley. Our results imply that: (1) perceived familiarity is dependent upon a wider range of variables other than appearance and behaviour; and (2) for realistic, human-like characters the Uncanny Valley is an impossible traverse, is not supported fully by empirical evidence and the concept is better replaced with the notion of an Uncanny Wall.

This study investigates the relationship between the perceived strangeness of a virtual character and the perception of human likeness for some attributes of motion and sound. Participants (N=100) were asked to rate thirteen video clips of twelve different virtual characters and one human. The results indicate that attributes of motion and sound do exaggerate the uncanny phenomenon and how frightening that character is perceived to be. Strong correlations were identified for the perceived strangeness of a character with how human-like a character's voice sounded, how human-like the facial expression appeared and how synchronized the character's sound was with lip movement; characters rated as the least synchronized were perceived to be the most frightening. Based on the results of this study, this article seeks to define an initial set of hypotheses for the fear-evoking aspects of character facial rendering and vocalization in survival horror games that can be used by game designers seeking to increase the fear factor in the genre, and that will form the basis of further experiments, which, it is hoped, will lead to a conceptual framework for the uncanny.