Cardiff University | Prifysgol Caerdydd ORCA
Online Research @ Cardiff 
WelshClear Cookie - decide language by browser settings

Familiarity, orientation, and realism increase face uncanniness by sensitizing to facial distortions

Diel, Alexander and Lewis, Michael ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5735-5318 2022. Familiarity, orientation, and realism increase face uncanniness by sensitizing to facial distortions. Journal of Vision 22 , 14. 10.1167/jov.22.4.14

[thumbnail of Lewis. Familiarity, orientation, and realism. pub.pdf]
Preview
PDF - Published Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution.

Download (2MB) | Preview

Abstract

The uncanny valley predicts aversive reactions toward near-humanlike entities. Greater uncanniness is elicited by distortions in realistic than unrealistic faces, possibly due to familiarity. Experiment 1 investigated how familiarity and inversion affect uncanniness of facial distortions and the ability to detect differences between the distorted variants of the same face (distortion sensitivity). Familiar or unfamiliar celebrity faces were incrementally distorted and presented either upright or inverted. Uncanniness ratings increased across the distortion levels, and were stronger for familiar and upright faces. Distortion sensitivity increased with increasing distortion difference levels, again stronger for familiar and upright faces. Experiment 2 investigated how face realism, familiarity, and face orientation interacted for the increase of uncanniness across distortions. Realism increased the increase of uncanniness across the distortion levels, further enhanced by upright orientation and familiarity. The findings show that familiarity, upright orientation, and high face realism increase the sensitivity of uncanniness, likely by increasing distortion sensitivity. Finally, a moderated linear function of face realism and deviation level could explain the uncanniness of stimuli better than a quadratic function. A re-interpretation of the uncanny valley as sensitivity toward deviations from familiarized patterns is discussed.

Item Type: Article
Date Type: Publication
Status: Published
Schools: Psychology
Additional Information: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Publisher: Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology
ISSN: 1534-7362
Date of First Compliant Deposit: 22 February 2022
Date of Acceptance: 19 February 2022
Last Modified: 06 May 2023 18:17
URI: https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/147721

Citation Data

Cited 2 times in Scopus. View in Scopus. Powered By Scopus® Data

Actions (repository staff only)

Edit Item Edit Item

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

View more statistics