The Uncanny Valley presentation has been updated with new robots. It was presented as a 10 minute short presentation at UX Australia conference, held in Canberra on Thursday 28th to Friday 29th of August 2009.
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The Uncanny Valley - UX Australia
1. The Uncanny Valley: “That frakkin’ toaster is freaking me out!” By Ruth Ellison Twitter: @RuthEllison At UX Australia On 27 th August 2009
2. I’m Ruth User experience person Usability person Loves gadgets Robot lover Chocolate appreciator Information architect Work at Stamford Interactive
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6. This is a robot ABB Assembly Line Robot By avramc from http://www.flickr.com/photos/28695713@N00/445073590/ Available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license
7. This is a robot Source: http://www.zcars.com.au/images/knight-rider-kitt1.jpg
8. These are not robots Robot Attack! By Dan Coulter from http://www.flickr.com/photos/dancoulter/21042744/ Available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license
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10. Roomba Linus stalking the Roomba By Eirik Newth from http://www.flickr.com/photos/eiriknewth/282273087/in/set-72157594351565925/ Available under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license
11. Simon More info: http://www.athomaz.com/?p=116, http://www.hizook.com/blog/2009/08/22/andrea-thomaz-wins-prestigious-mit-tech-review-2009-young-innovators-under-35-award- Image source: http://www.hizook.com/blog/2009/08/22/andrea-thomaz-wins-prestigious-mit-tech-review-2009-young-innovators-under-35-award-
13. Keepon Keepon By JanneM from http://www.flickr.com/photos/jannem/214869878/ Available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license Check out these videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPdP1jBfxzo
14. HRP-4C More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HRP-4C, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpO57NltoAI, http://www.thetechnologyblog.net/archives/japanese-robot-hrp-4c-cybernetic-human/japanese-technology Image source: http://www.aist.go.jp/aist_j/press_release/pr2009/pr20090316/pr20090316.html
22. Uncanny Valley graph familiarity + - Human likeness Industrial robot Zombie Humanoid robot Uncanny valley Repliee Q2 & similar robots Healthy human Cylon ‘skin-jobs’ Cylon raider Based on Masahiro Mori and Karl F. MacDorman graph Final fantasy & The Polar Express
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24. Shared circuits for empathy Sources: 1. A Walk in the Valley of the Uncanny - http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=853 2. MacDorman, K. F., Green, R. D., Ho, C.-C., & Koch, C. (in press). Too Real for Comfort? Uncanny responses to computer generated faces. Computers in Human Behavior.
25. Shared circuits for empathy Sources: 1. A Walk in the Valley of the Uncanny - http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=853 2. MacDorman, K. F., Green, R. D., Ho, C.-C., & Koch, C. (in press). Too Real for Comfort? Uncanny responses to computer generated faces. Computers in Human Behavior.
27. Appearance and behaviour should match ability Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13639_3-10313385-42.html
28. Degree of human realism in appearance should match behaviour Source: http://www.cartoonary.com/the-incredibles/images/the-incredibles-wallpaper-photo-2560x1600.jpg Source: Image source: http://img.thesun.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00821/robotmain_821389a.jpg
A side note: The word robota means literally work, labor or serf labor, and figuratively "drudgery" or "hard work" in Czech and many Slavic languages. (From Wikipedia)
The Roomba is a robotic vacuum cleaner made by iRobot.
Dr. Andrea Thomaz of Georgia Tech - Simon is designed to study human-robot interaction from a social learning vantage, such as learning by demonstration and human-robot collaboration.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFfw0RteVwA&feature=player_embedded Keepon is a small yellow robot designed to study social development by interacting with children. Keepon was developed by Hideki Kozima while at the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) in Kyoto , Japan. Keepon has four motors, a rubber skin, two cameras in its eyes, and a microphone in its nose. – Source Wikipedia
The HRP-4C is a humanoid robot created by the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology and publicly demonstrated on March 16, 2009. [1] It is 158cm (5 feet 2 inches) tall and weighs 43kg (95 pounds) including battery. Its shape and joints are based on the 1997-1998 Japanese body dimension database. It is capable of voice recognition and speech synthesis. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HRP-4C
Cooking robot 'Okonomiyaki Robot' is best known for making okonomiyaki (Japanese flour cake). Developed by Osaka-based robot system integrator Toyo Riki Co., this masterchef can demonstrate the whole process of okonomiyaki cooking - stirring the ingredients in a bowl, pouring them on the heated cooking pan and turning the okonomiyaki over with spatulas. It also serves the meal on a plate, asking you what types of sauces and other condiments you want Source: http://www.news.com.au/technology/gallery/0,23607,5058393-5014321-7,00.html
Meet the Guardian Robot by Ken Lim: This friendly little fellow stands on your desk and monitors your Twitter feed for "happy" and "sad" posts by your friends on your Twitter feed. But unlike conventional alert systems, this robot encourages you to interact with the posts it finds.
Archie robot designed at the Vienna University of Technology in concert with the University of Manitoba. Created as a humanoid robot, Archie was designed to assist humans with routine tasks such as cleaning, playing games and cooking.
From Osaka University’s Graduate School of Engineering. Professor Minoru Asada's team is trying to teach the android to think like a baby which evaluates its mother's countless facial expressions and 'clusters' them into basic categories, such as happiness and sadness. It slowly develops social skills by interacting with humans and watching their facial expressions
Developed by Osaka University , the "Repliee" models are interactive robots with the ability to recognise and process speech and respond in kind. More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repliee
The Uncanny Valley term was introduced by Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori in 1970. The Uncanny Valley is a hypothesis about robotics concerning the emotional response of humans to robots and other non-human entities. Made the observation – as robots appear more human like, they appear more familiar. Almost human can seem almost strange and eerie. “ The uncanny valley is a hypothesis that when robots and other facsimiles of humans look and act almost like actual humans, it causes a response of revulsion among human observers. The "valley" in question is a dip in a proposed graph of the positivity of human reaction as a function of a robot's lifelikeness.” - Wikipedia
Uncanny valley - the point along the realism curve where the object looks alive enough to trigger biologically-programmed responses, but not quite alive enough to pass for human—and as a result, can be unsettling or even repulsive. First suggested by Japanese robotics researcher Masahiro Mori in 1970, the Uncanny Valley concept may help to explain why games, toys and animations with cartoony, exaggerated characters often are more successful than their “realistic” counterparts. Source: http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/cascio20061213/ Image credits: Industrial robot - http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/km/projs/fingartprint/images/PR_KUKA_Industrial_Robot_KR6_01.jpg Cylon raider - http://www.tombsofkobol.com/images/bg/bsg03-raider24a.jpg Final fantasy - http://www.andrewzeller.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/realisticphotos.jpg Polar Express -http://media.jsonline.com/images/28007159_164815__polar2_l.jpg Zombie - http://www.flickr.com/photos/laughingsquid/219581402/ Repliee - http://plcscadasystems.blogspot.com/2009/01/japan-membuat-sex-robots.html Cylon six skin job - http://weblogs.redeyechicago.com/showpatrol/images/2008/04/10/nup_111711_1331_2.jpg
A number of theories have been proposed to explain the cognitive mechanism underlying the phenomenon: Theories can be grouped into: Automatic, stimulus-driven, specialised processing - Threat avoidance, Shared circuits for empathy, Evolutionary aesthetics Cognitive Processing - Cognitive dissonance of liminal objects, Sorites paradoxes involving personal and human identity, Terror management theory. Refer to MacDorman et al.
anthropomorphism Theory one: Empathy for clearly nonhuman entities - Empathy for clearly nonhuman entities is based upon the recognition of human characteristics in an irrefutably different context. The human mind recognizes the subject as an obvious nonhuman, and then is attracted to it by the presence of human qualities. Source: http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=853
Nearly -human-looking entities causes feeling of disgust and alienation - Mind sees human being – want it to look and act like a human being Source: http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=853
Left: Talon military robot References: Goetz, J., Kiesler, S., & Powers, A. (2003). Matching robot appearance and behavior to tasks to improve human-robot cooperation. Proceedings of the Twelveth IEEE International Workshop on Robot and Human Interactive Communication. Lisbon, Portugal.
The degree of human realism in appearance should match its degree of human realism in behaviour. References: Goetz, J., Kiesler, S., & Powers, A. (2003). Matching robot appearance and behavior to tasks to improve human-robot cooperation. Proceedings of the Twelveth IEEE International Workshop on Robot and Human Interactive Communication. Lisbon, Portugal. Vinayagamoorthy, V. Steed, A. & Slater, M. (2005). Building Characters: Lessons Drawn from Virtual Environments. Toward Social Mechanisms of Android Science: A CogSci 2005 Workshop. July 25–26, Stresa, Italy, pp. 119–126. Ho, C.-C., MacDorman, K. F. , & Pramono, Z. A. D. (2008). Human emotion and the uncanny valley: A GLM, MDS, and ISOMAP analysis of robot video ratings. Proceedings of the Third ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction. March 11-14. Amsterdam.
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