More than appearance: the uncanny valley effect changes with a robot’s mental capacity

Trading faces: Complete AI face doubles avoid the uncanny valley

10.31234/osf.io/pykjr ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Christopher Welker ◽

David France ◽

Alice Henty ◽

Thalia Wheatley

Keyword(s):

Artificial Intelligence ◽

Sexual Orientation ◽

Uncanny Valley ◽

Torture Survivors ◽

The Uncanny ◽

The Creation ◽

Full Face ◽

The Impact

Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) enable the creation of videos in which a person appears to say or do things they did not. The impact of these so-called “deepfakes” hinges on their perceived realness. Here we tested different versions of deepfake faces for Welcome to Chechnya, a documentary that used face swaps to protect the privacy of Chechen torture survivors who were persecuted because of their sexual orientation. AI face swaps that replace an entire face with another were perceived as more human-like and less unsettling compared to partial face swaps that left the survivors’ original eyes unaltered. The full-face swap was deemed the least unsettling even in comparison to the original (unaltered) face. When rendered in full, AI face swaps can appear human and avoid aversive responses in the viewer associated with the uncanny valley.

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The Uncanny Valley

10.31979/etd.dnd9-n5sx ◽

2014 ◽

Author(s):

Jessy Rose Goodman

Keyword(s):

Uncanny Valley ◽

The Uncanny

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Eliza in the uncanny valley: anthropomorphizing consumer robots increases their perceived warmth but decreases liking

Marketing Letters ◽

10.1007/s11002-019-09485-9 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 30 (1) ◽

pp. 1-12 ◽

Cited By ~ 19

Author(s):

Seo Young Kim ◽

Bernd H. Schmitt ◽

Nadia M. Thalmann

Keyword(s):

Uncanny Valley ◽

The Uncanny

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Sending an Avatar to Do a Human's Job: Compliance with Authority Persists Despite the Uncanny Valley

Presence Teleoperators & Virtual Environments ◽

10.1162/pres_a_00212 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 24 (1) ◽

pp. 1-23 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Himalaya Patel ◽

Karl F. MacDorman

Keyword(s):

Ethical Dilemma ◽

Sensitive Information ◽

Uncanny Valley ◽

Human Communication ◽

Risk Of Falling ◽

Computer Interfaces ◽

The Uncanny ◽

Authority Figure ◽

Human Likeness ◽

Motion Quality

Just as physical appearance affects social influence in human communication, it may also affect the processing of advice conveyed through avatars, computer-animated characters, and other human-like interfaces. Although the most persuasive computer interfaces are often the most human-like, they have been predicted to incur the greatest risk of falling into the uncanny valley, the loss of empathy attributed to characters that appear eerily human. Previous studies compared interfaces on the left side of the uncanny valley, namely, those with low human likeness. To examine interfaces with higher human realism, a between-groups factorial experiment was conducted through the internet with 426 midwestern U.S. undergraduates. This experiment presented a hypothetical ethical dilemma followed by the advice of an authority figure. The authority was manipulated in three ways: depiction (digitally recorded or computer animated), motion quality (smooth or jerky), and advice (disclose or refrain from disclosing sensitive information). Of these, only the advice changed opinion about the ethical dilemma, even though the animated depiction was significantly eerier than the human depiction. These results indicate that compliance with an authority persists even when using an uncannily realistic computer-animated double.

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