ABSTRACT
I start this journey by examining what the uncanny is and what it stands for in relation to human-like virtual characters. Why should this old-fashioned adjective derived over a century ago be so pertinent in the most innovative CG character designs of today? On reading Jentsch’s and Freud’s psychoanalytical works, I acknowledged that the uncanny was indeed a feeling that I had experienced when I had encountered strange and scary objects. e word uncanny did describe the chill that I felt up my spine when I realized that there was something not quite right about a CG character presented with a near human-like appearance-to the extent that I was uncomfortable viewing the character’s sinister depiction of a human-like form. Where did the root of this problem lie? Were there mistakes within the human-like character, or are we uncomfortable when presented with close simulations of the human form? In order to attempt to answer these questions, I had to understand the psychological drivers behind the uncanny and why Mori (1970/2012) made associations of this concept with robot design. In this rst chapter I discuss rudimentary psychological literature on the subject of the uncanny and then why this phenomenon was recognized in robots with a human-like appearance. To demonstrate the public’s response and critique of virtual characters with a human-like appearance, I include a section on the impact of the uncanny in games and animation in trade press. Building on this initial investigation into experience of the uncanny, in later chapters I tackle why we may be so intolerable of virtual characters with close human-likenesses, address problems in the production stages of character design and provide
a new theory as to why factors such as abnormal facial expression and speech cause the Uncanny Valley in human-like virtual characters.
