Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Understanding The Uncanny: Both Atypical Features And Category Ambiguity Provoke Aversion Toward Humanlike Robots, Megan K. Strait, Victoria A. Floerke, Wendy Ju, Keith Maddox, Jessica D. Remedios, Malte F. Jung, Heather L. Urry

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Robots intended for social contexts are often designed with explicit humanlike attributes in order to facilitate their reception by (and communication with) people. However, observation of an “uncanny valley”—a phenomenon in which highly humanlike entities provoke aversion in human observers—has lead some to caution against this practice. Both of these contrasting perspectives on the anthropomorphic design of social robots find some support in empirical investigations to date. Yet, owing to outstanding empirical limitations and theoretical disputes, the uncanny valley and its implications for human-robot interaction remains poorly understood. We thus explored the relationship between human similarity and people's aversion toward …