====== The 'Uncanny Valley' hypothesis ======

The //Uncanny Valley hypothesis// was first noted in 1970 by Masahiro Mori, professor of engineering at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, in his book entitled [[https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-uncanny-valley|Bukimi No Tani (translation)]]//.//

It refers to the idea that when people view human-like artificial characters which are not //quite// 'perfect', it can generate strong feelings of unease.

The 'valley' refers to the a dip in the graph of a human observer's affinity for replicas. In other words, if the replica is very obviously not-human, then people don't generally find it unpleasant - and if it was possible to create a completely 'perfect' replica, they also wouldn't find it unpleasant (they may not even sense it was a replica).

At least eight different theories have been put forward as a way of explaining the phenomenon. For the current list, see [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley#Theoretical_basis|Wikipedia]]

To date however, there's no agreement about which, if any, may be the correct explanation(s).

In addition, some researchers question if the effect is even real.

>The uncanny valley hypothesis, proposed already in the 1970s, suggests that almost but not fully humanlike artificial characters will trigger a profound sense of unease. This hypothesis has become widely acknowledged both in the popular media and scientific research. Surprisingly, empirical evidence for the hypothesis has remained inconsistent.\\ \\ Source : [[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4392592/|Frontiers in Psychology,]] {{:oa_padlock_grn.png?16}}6: 390.

Further reading : A 2012[[https://spectrum.ieee.org/an-uncanny-mind-masahiro-mori-on-the-uncanny-valley#toggle-gdpr| interview with Masahiro Mori,]] //IEEE Spectrum.//