Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

The uncanny valley hypothesis suggests that human replicas, such as robots and animated characters, which closely (butdo not completely) resemble humans create feelings of discomfort and eeriness in observers. Given the large volume ofresearch that has sought to assess this hypothesis and explain why some replicas induce such feelings, I have conducted anintegrative review of such research to explore the uncanny valley within behavioral science, neuroscience, and cognitiveengineering. I believe the data suggest that uncanniness can be at least partially attributed to a mental conflict betweenthe observers knowledge of the replicas artificiality and the observers emotional desire to form a connection with some-thing that looks so human. Nevertheless, the literature has several limitations that must be addressed before definitiveconclusions can be made. This poster will review and integrate this research on the uncanny valley hypothesis.