The effect of "sinister valley"

The effect of "sinister valley" (eng. uncanny valley) - the hypothesis that a robot or other object, looking or acting approximately as a man (but not exactly like the real), causes aversion and disgust of the people-observers.

In 1978 a Japanese scientist Masahiro Mori conducted a survey exploring the emotional reaction of people on the appearance of robots. At first the results were predictable: the more a robot looks human, the prettier it looks, but only up to a certain limit.

Most humanoid robots are surprisingly unpleasant to people because of the ambiguities of reality, causing discomfort and fear. Unexpected decline in the graph "likes" and has been called "uncanny valley", though Masahiro Mori found that the animation enhances both positive and negative perception.

Four main theories why this happens:

• people unconsciously analyzes and rejects the smallest deviations from the norm, as a result perceives the robot as a machine, but as a sick or dead person;
• seeing the humanoid robot, one is faced with an unknown creature, from whom you can expect anything;
• we are not able to understand the feelings of the object, like themselves, and we are overwhelmed by a feeling of uncertainty;
• people do not get a predictable reaction from the robot and treats it like a human psychopath, and this is, again, in danger.

Translated by «Yandex.Translator»