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The development of the uncanny valley in infants
Author(s) -
Lewkowicz David J.,
Ghazanfar Asif A.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
developmental psychobiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.055
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1098-2302
pISSN - 0012-1630
DOI - 10.1002/dev.20583
Subject(s) - uncanny valley , disgust , psychology , avatar , face (sociological concept) , uncanny , cognitive psychology , attractiveness , test (biology) , perception , turing test , developmental psychology , social psychology , psychoanalysis , computer science , artificial intelligence , neuroscience , human–computer interaction , geology , philosophy , paleontology , anger , linguistics
When adults view very realistic humanoid robots or computer avatars they often exhibit an aversion to them. This phenomenon, known as the “uncanny valley,” is assumed to be evolutionary in origin, perhaps tapping into modules for disgust or attractiveness that detect violations of our normal expectations regarding social signals. Here, we test an alternative hypothesis that the uncanny valley is developmental in origin and, thus, that specific early experience with real human faces leads to its eventual emergence. To test this idea, we measured visual preferences in response to all possible pairs of a human face, realistic avatar face, and an unrealistic avatar face in groups of 6‐, 8‐, 10‐, and 12‐month‐old infants. Consistent with the developmental hypothesis, we found that the uncanny valley effect emerges at 12 months of age suggesting that perceptual experience with real human faces is critical to its emergence. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Dev Psychobiol 54:124‐132, 2012.