Evaluating the Uncanny valley with the implicit association test

Abstract

Despite the elusive term "Uncanny Valley", research in the area of appealing virtual humans approaching realism continues. The theory suggests that characters lose appeal when they approach photorealism (e.g., [MacDorman et al. 2009]). Realistic virtual characters are judged harshly, since the human visual system has acquired more expertise with the featural restrictions of other humans than with the restrictions of artificial characters [Seyama and Nagayama 2007]. Stylisation (making the character's appearance abstract) is therefore often used to avoid virtual characters to be perceived as unpleasant. We designed an experiment to test if there is a general affinity towards abstract as oppose to realistic characters.