added by Emily Silverman, MD · updated 2y ago
Remaining Human: Avoiding the Uncanny Valley
- The data uncanny valley: how overoptimisation leads us to the loss of more human, more beautiful emotional things.
Agalia Tan added
Anthropomorphic forms are generally appealing to humans. However, when a form is very close but not identical to a healthy human — as with a mannequin or computer-generated renderings of people — the form tends to become distinctly unappealing. This sharp decline in appeal is called the “uncanny valley,” a reference to the large valley or dip in
from Universal Principles of Design, Revised and Updated: 125 Ways to Enhance Usability, Influence Perception, Increase Appeal, Make Better Design Decisions, and Teach through Design by Jill Butler
There’s a theory in the field of aesthetics called the uncanny valley. It holds that when something looks almost like a human being—a mannequin or humanlike robot—it creates revulsion in the observer, because the appearance is so close to human, yet just off enough to evoke a feeling of uncanniness, of something that is both familiar and alien.
from Dark Matter: A Novel by Blake Crouch