Monkeys Fall Into ‘Uncanny Valley,’ Just Like Humans
Monkeys are freaked out by almost-but-not-quite-real depictions of themselves. That tendency is well documented in humans, but has never before been seen in another species.
To test their preference, researchers showed macaque monkeys real pictures, digital caricatures and realistic reconstructions of other monkey faces. To the latter, the macaques repeatedly averted their eyes.
“The visual behavior of the monkeys falls into the uncanny valley just the same as human visual behavior,” wrote Princeton University evolutionary biologists Shawn Steckinfinger and Asif Ghazanfar in a paper published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Complete story here, from Wired Science 10/13/09.
Comments
Fiammetta Ghedini, now working at UCL with Semir Zeki, has mentioned the CAPGRAS syndrome as possibly related to the Uncanny Valley. At PICNIC, I linked the ELIZA effect to the Uncanny Valley. She and I are in the midst of planning a paper + experiments to pursue these ideas.
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October 15, 2009 1:40 PM