The deviation-from-familiarity effect: Expertise increases uncanniness of deviating exemplars

Diel, Alexander and Lewis, Michael ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5735-5318 2022. The deviation-from-familiarity effect: Expertise increases uncanniness of deviating exemplars. PLoS ONE 17 (9) , e0273861. 10.1371/journal.pone.0273861

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Abstract

Humanlike entities deviating from the norm of human appearance are perceived as strange or uncanny. Explanations for the eeriness of deviating humanlike entities include ideas specific to human or animal stimuli like mate selection, avoidance of threat or disease, or dehumanization; however, deviation from highly familiar categories may provide a better explanation. Here it is tested whether experts and novices in a novel (greeble) category show different patterns of abnormality, attractiveness, and uncanniness responses to distorted and averaged greebles. Greeble-trained participants assessed the abnormality, attractiveness, uncanniness of normal, averaged, and distorted greebles and their responses were compared to participants who had not previously seen greebles. The data show that distorted greebles were more uncanny than normal greebles only in the training condition, and distorted greebles were more uncanny in the training compared to the control condition. In addition, averaged greebles were not more attractive than normal greebles regardless of condition. The results suggest uncanniness is elicited by deviations from stimulus categories of expertise rather than being a purely biological human- or animal-specific response.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	Published
Schools:	Psychology
Additional Information:	License information from Publisher: LICENSE 1: URL: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Publisher:	Public Library of Science
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	2 September 2022
Date of Acceptance:	16 August 2022
Last Modified:	21 May 2023 22:10
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/152306

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