• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
• /
• v.25 no.1
• /
• pp.91-102
• /
• 2022

As virtual space activities become more common, human-virtual agents such as avatars are more frequently used instead of people, but the uncanny valley effect, in which people feel uncomfortable when they see artifacts that look similar to humans, is an obstacle. In this study, we explored the uncanny valley effect for celebrity avatars. We manipulated the degree of atypicality by adjusting the eye size in photos of celebrities, ordinary people, and their avatars and measured the intensity of the uncanny valley effect. As a result, the uncanny valley effect for celebrities and celebrity avatars appeared to be stronger than the effect for ordinary people. This result is consistent with previous findings that more robust facial representations are formed for familiar faces, making it easier to detect facial changes. However, with real faces of celebrities and ordinary people, as in previous studies, the higher the degree of atypicality, the greater the uncanny valley effect, but this result was not found for the avatar stimulus. This high degree of tolerance for atypicality in avatars seems to be caused by cartoon characters' tendency to have exaggerated facial features such as eyes, nose, and mouth. These results suggest that efforts to reduce the uncanny valley in the virtual space service using celebrity avatars are necessary.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
• /
• s.43
• /
• pp.321-342
• /
• 2016

The "uncanny valley" curve describes the measured results of the negative emotion response which depends on the similarity between the artificially created character and the real human shape. The "uncanny valley" effect that usually appears in the animation character design induces negative response such as fear and hatred feeling, and anxiety, which is not expected by designers. Especially, in the case of the commercial animation which mostly reply on public response, this kind of negative response is directly related to the failure of artificially created character. Accordingly, designers adjust the desirability of the character design by avoiding or utilizing the "uncanny valley" effect, inducing certain character effect that leads to the success in animation work. This manuscript confirmed the "uncanny valley" coefficient of the positive emotion character design which was based on the actual character design and animation analysis. The "uncanny valley" concept was firstly introduced by a medical scientist Ernst Jentsch in 1906. After then, a psychologist Freud applied this concept to psychological phenomenon in 1919 and a Japanese robert expert Professor Masahiro Mori presented the "uncanny valley" theory on the view of the recognition effect. This paper interpreted the "uncanny valley" effect based on these research theory outcomes in two aspects including sensation production and emotion expression. The mickey-mouse character design analysis confirmed the existence basis of the "uncanny valley" effect, which presented how mickey-mouse human shape image imposed the "uncanny valley" effect on audience. The animation work analysis investigated the reason why the produced 3D animation character should not be 100% similar to the real human by comparing the animation baby character produced by Pix company as the experimental subject to the data of the real baby with the same age. Therefore, the examples of avoiding or utilizing the "uncanny valley" effect in animation character design was discussed in detail and the four stages of sensation production and emotional change of audience due to this kind of effect was figured out. This research result can be used as an important reference in deciding the desirability of the animation character.

• The Journal of the Institute of Internet, Broadcasting and Communication
• /
• v.23 no.1
• /
• pp.1-6
• /
• 2023

Uncanny Valley is a theory proposed by Japanese robot engineer Masahiro Mori in 1970, and refers to the point where the likability drops sharply when the appearance of a robot becomes very similar to a human being without a fully equipped robot. In this study, the theory of existing literature, related papers, and experimental data were analyzed to examine the Uncanny Valley effect that affects character design. The purpose of this study is to analyze whether the Uncanny Valley effect is applied to modeling virtual characters distributed in the Unreal Engine Marketplace. To this end, 15 characters were selected based on the similarity with humans in the Marketplace of the Unreal Engine, and similarity with humans and likability were investigated and analyzed. As a result of the experiment, it was confirmed that the Uncanny Valley effect was similarly applied to virtual character modeling, and through this, guidelines for the use of characters by indie game developers or individual developers using Unreal engines were presented. In addition, through result analysis, we tried to examine the direction to be pursued when designing characters.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
• /
• v.14 no.10
• /
• pp.277-285
• /
• 2016

The purpose of this study is to quantitatively and empirically investigate whether cartoon-realism, which is referred to as a guideline for avoiding the uncanny valley phenomenon, is actually effective. An experiment was carried out to investigate whether or not methods that try to realistically express the texture of human skin while making 3D models whose outward appearance abstract like a cartoon actually reduce the negative sentiments associated with the uncanny valley phenomenon. The results found that when human skin textures were applied to cartoon-type 3D models, the degree of eeriness significantly increased (p<0.05), while there was no change in the degree of human likeness. When cartoon-style skin textures were applied to human-type 3D models, there was no significant difference in the degree of eeriness, but the degree of human likeness significantly decreased (p<0.05). These results show that, cartoon realism is not actually effective, and rather creates a perceptual conflict and induces the uncanny valley phenomenon. The results of this study are expected to be used as quantitative and empirical data for developing design guidelines that will overcome the uncanny valley phenomenon in the future.

• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
• /
• v.19 no.1
• /
• pp.95-110
• /
• 2016

Uncanny valley refers to the condition where the affinity of a human-like object decreases dramatically if the object becomes extremely similar to human, and has been hypothesized to derive from the cognitive load of categorical conflict against an uncanny object. According to the hypothesis, the present study ran an oddball task consisting of trials each displaying one among a non-human, human and uncanny face, and measured event-related potentials (ERPs) for each trial condition. In Experiment 1, a non-human face was presented in 80% of the trials (standard) whereas a human face for another 10% trials (target) and an uncanny face for the remaining 10% trials (uncanny). Participants' responses were relatively inaccurate and delayed in both the target and uncanny oddball trials, but neither P3 nor N170 component differed across the three trial conditions. Experiment 2 used 3-D rendered realistic faces to increase the degree of categorical conflict, and found the behavioral results were similar to Experiment 1. However, the peak amplitude of N170 of the target and uncanny trials were higher than the standard trials while P3 mean amplitudes for both the target and uncanny trials were comparable but higher than the amplitude for the standard trials. P3 latencies were delayed in the order of the standard, target, and uncanny trials. The changes in N170 and P3 patterns across the experiments appear to arise from the categorical conflict that the uncanny face must be categorized as a non-target according to the oddball-task requirement despite its perceived category of a human face. The observed increase of cognitive load following the added reality to the uncanny face also indicates that the cognitive load, supposedly responsible for the uncanny experience, would depend on the increase of categorical conflict information subsequent to added stimulus complexity.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
• /
• s.20
• /
• pp.47-61
• /
• 2010

The Uncanny Valley is a hypothesis introduced by a roboticist, Masahiro Mori. The theory holds that as robots and other facsimiles of humans look and act more human-like, the emotional response from a human spectator to them will become increasingly empathic, until they approach realistic similarity to humans but not quite exactly like them, when those images stop being likable and instead become repulsive and "uncanny." Although the scientific validity of this hypothesis is still debatable, it is true that many spectators has tendency to reject hyper-realistic animation. For that reason, the great success of the recent movie Avatar is remarkable. Computer animations that try to represent humans in hyper-realistic way fall into a paradox: successful result images would look too mundane and unsuccessful ones look "wrong". On top of that, audience would expect from hyper-realistic animation to see same level of acting of live-action films, which is usually not the case. The subtle differences between digital characters and real actors irritate spectators and hinder them in absorbtion. The biggest difference between Avatar and other hyper-realistic animation is the referent of their representation. While Avatar pursues a similar hyper-realistic visual style, the referents of the representation shown in this movie are totally alien to us thus impossible to compare with the real counterparts. Unlike characters in other hyper-realistic animations who had to fight an uphill battle with great actors in real life, those in Avatar have criteria of their own. That is why this movie can be free from the dreadful valley and let the audience absorb into the spectacle.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
• /
• s.37
• /
• pp.1-24
• /
• 2014

The advancement of computer technology has blurred the border in image expression between live-action films and 3D animation to an indistinguishable extent. Despite the ever-evolving image expression, it has been found that animation properly incorporating abstractive expression receives more positive responses from the audience than the animation closely akin to live-action films. This indicates that animation-specific abstractive expression can exert more significant effects than that of live-action expression as proved in Dr. Mori Masahiro's 'Uncanny Valley.' Also, such effects apply only to characters, whilst the technology capable of live-action expression is acknowledged only for the background of 3D animation. Without doubt, animation has its own infinite world of expression, and thus more effective methods for its expression can no longer be considered a matter of technology. The present study analyzes the abstractive expression of 3D animation in terms of characters and backgrounds and explores a more effective method to apply the current technology of image expression to 3D animation with a view to proposing a direction for more appropriate application of 3D animation technology to future animation.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
• /
• v.17 no.7
• /
• pp.22-30
• /
• 2017

CGI not only performed a crucial role to make cinema and animation evolved into digital cinema and digital animation but also CGI, an important visual format, settled realism-centric spectacle image culture in public commercial cinema and animation. The fact that CGI visual format could be structuralized in three different view points is discovered through Iconicity, photorealism, verisimilitude, uncanny valley, hyperrealism, and spectacular realism discourse research which explain image culture. First, a formative viewpoint that comes up in an iconic difference between drawing and photograph. Secondly, a cognitive viewpoint that sees visually perceived naturalness and abnormality as a realistic probability issue. Lastly, a customary viewpoint which is rooted in aesthetic tradition of cinema and animation. After that, the features of CGI which is used in the movie 'jungle book'(2016) were analyzed using the structured visual format. Consequently, this movie has hyper-realistic photographic iconicity on the base of realistic probability. Also, by following image-aesthetic convention which uses overstated and amplified narrative as a visual format, at the same time, the movie also has sufficient image-aesthetic convention in animation by personified animal character.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
• /
• s.37
• /
• pp.439-461
• /
• 2014

Art has evolved into remarkable changes in its art form maintaining a close link with the contemporary scientific technologies that gave birth to new tools of expression in each era. Animation is an art form in an inextricable connection with technological aspects because it was spawned by the technical background like movies. In this regard, animation is often viewed very strongly by technical advancements in terms of an aesthetic approach. John Whitney Sr., one of the pioneers in computer graphics arts, turned his attention to the new technology called computer graphics as a means to visualize images and movement. The advent of a new medium had a strong influence not only on tools and means for novel expression but also on the gradual shift in thinking about arts and even the audiences' taste. In the 1980s, animation was combined with computer technology and the rapid progress of computer graphic technology opened up the era of new visual aesthetics, Today, the development of digital technology presents a different dimension of realism, either advocating hyperrealism by digital actors or presenting new illusionism by classic cartoon characters emphasized in a distortion or metamorphosis from a real life in order to consolidate animation realism. Based on the two perspectives mentioned above, this study can identify methods of digital character appropriation focused on the works of the ACM SIGGRAPH Asia and find how the relationship between art and technology has changed the digital realism and evolved the digital character as the digital technology has developed.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
• /
• v.22 no.7
• /
• pp.524-539
• /
• 2022

With the advent of generative artificial intelligence technology, it became possible to create a virtual human, and produce a lecture video only with textual information. It is expected that the virtual human will enhance the efficient production of educational contents and the student's entertainment experience and satisfaction. However, there have been still few studies that have demonstrated the process of how virtual human technology reaches students' satisfaction. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to empirically examine whether the human likeness, which is the main characteristic of a virtual human based on Uncanny Valley theory, affects human experience and satisfaction. In particular, human likeness of the Uncanny Valley theory was subdivided into human likeness in the visual and verbal dimensions, and the process of reaching satisfaction was understood based on the experience economy model. In particular, human similarity in Uncanny Valley theory was classified as similarity in the visual and language levels, and the process of reaching satisfaction based on the experiential economic model was analyzed with a partial least squares structure model equation (PLS-SEM). The survey was conducted online for a panel of office workers at a specialized research institution in China. The results indicate that both the visual and verbal human likeness had a positive effect on experience economy factors (education, entertainment, esthetic, escape), and then these experiential factors had a significant effect on satisfaction. The results also provide some suggestions to consider when designing educational contents by virtual human.