1 post filed under uncanny valley
“Tokyo department store Takashimiya has teamed up with Dr Hiroshi Ishiguro of Osaka University to install a new visual merchandising concept using a lifelike android mannequin that has shoppers stopping in their tracks.”
1 post filed under uncanny valley
Pallette and UT Pallette are $50,000 Japanese mannequins that change their pose when they “sense” people looking at them. It’s all based on motion capture with proximity sensors at the moment but their designer Tatsuya Matsu, boss of Flower Robotics says that future versions will feature face recognition.
”It makes the product the mannequin wears look more attractive, increasing consumers’ appetite to buy”. He also says “Consumer attention would be diverted to the face if there were one.” which explains why they look the way they do. They’re avoiding the uncanny valley.
Via Inventorspot.
1 post filed under uncanny valley
This is Telenoid R1. It’s designed to transmit the presence of a person to a different place.
Its creator, Japanese roboticist Hiroshi Ishiguro and his collaborators say the idea was to create a teleoperated robot that could appear male or female, old or young, and that could be easily transported. The new design pushes the envelope of human-robot interaction by diving into the uncanny valley.
1 post filed under uncanny valley
For a Halloween mask Eric Testroete decided to make a papercraft version of his own head as a 3D vector model. Inspired by the ‘big head mode’ easter egg often seen in videogames he used 3D Studio Max, Photoshop, Mudbox and Pepakura to create something that does something really bizarre. I love it.
He’s posted full technical details on his site for those that are interested.
1 post filed under uncanny valley
Recently I’ve been thinking about the concept of uncanny valley.
Uncanny valley is what happens when artificial things get so realistic they’re almost perfect. There’s a point where they start becoming less believable the more realistic they become. In the case of artificial humans they become more corpse-like the more real they become. There’s something repulsive about them.
Especially if they’re moving.
Check out this robot goat thing. So real it’s creepy!
This robot child totally creeps me out.
Simpler artificial things are more believable. We’re able to suspend disbelief and apply all the missing emotional and physical characteristics to make them more real than the more realistic simulacra (is that the right word?).
The film industry have been struggling with uncanny valley for years, since CGI has become good enough to render entire characters in the film. If you’ve seen Final Fantasy - The Spirits Within you’ll know what I mean. Toy Story is more believable because it cleverly sidesteps uncanny Valley.
Game designers are having to contend with Uncanny Valley as game consoles are now powerful enough to render “almost human” characters in games.
I’d argue that games were almost as believable when the characters were a small collection of coloured pixels. Nintendo are doing a great job of bypassing Uncanny Valley with their games.
Scott Mcloud’s fantastic Understanding Comics explains that when a cartoon is simple it’s easier for people to connect with, because the lack of features widens the amount of people the cartoon could be representing. It’s easier for the reader to put themselves in the place of a simple character than it is a complex one.
Which brings me back to Tweenbots. Funny little fragile cardboard robots that you can’t help but love.
They were an experiment in seeing if people would help them. The results were amazing - One bloke even turned one round, sending it back the way it came saying “Don’t go that way, it’s dangerous!” even though he thought nobody was around.
I wonder if uncanny valley applies to interaction design.
It’s clear that when a person is interacting with a complex object or system they give it human characteristics. There was a test done somewhere (I forget where, but it’s mentioned in Alan Cooper’s book) where people were asked to complete a set of tasks on a computer then fill in an online form to say how well they thought the system performed. Half of the test participants filled in the form on the computer they used for the tasks and half of them used a new computer to fill in the form. The ones that used the same computer were actually more polite than the ones that used another machine. This would appear to suggest that people thought they might offend the machine!
So if the pursuit of better user experience has led us to make systems that are more human, more realistic and more helpful are we in theory in danger of falling into Uncanny Valley?
This might mean that simpler, more incomplete, humbler digital experiences could provoke a higher level of emotional engagement than the slicker ones.
Food for thought, right?
