IU Indianapolis ScholarWorks :: Browsing by Subject "anthropomorphism"

Browsing by Subject "anthropomorphism"

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Categorization-based stranger avoidance does not explain the uncanny valley effect
(Elsevier, 2017-04) MacDorman, Karl F.; Chattopadhyay, Debaleena; BioHealth Informatics, School of Informatics and Computing
The uncanny valley hypothesis predicts that an entity appearing almost human risks eliciting cold, eerie feelings in viewers. Categorization-based stranger avoidance theory identifies the cause of this feeling as categorizing the entity into a novel category. This explanation is doubtful because stranger is not a novel category in adults; infants do not avoid strangers while the category stranger remains novel; infants old enough to fear strangers prefer photographs of strangers to those more closely resembling a familiar person; and the uncanny valley’s characteristic eeriness is seldom felt when meeting strangers. We repeated our original experiment with a more realistic 3D computer model and found no support for categorization-based stranger avoidance theory. By contrast, realism inconsistency theory explains cold, eerie feelings elicited by transitions between instances of two different, mutually exclusive categories, given that at least one category is anthropomorphic: Cold, eerie feelings are caused by prediction error from perceiving some features as features of the first category and other features as features of the second category. In principle, realism inconsistency theory can explain not only negative evaluations of transitions between real and computer modeled humans but also between different vertebrate species.
Creepy, but Persuasive: In a Virtual Consultation, Physician Bedside Manner, Rather than the Uncanny Valley, Predicts Adherence
(Frontiers, 2021) Dai, Zhengyan; MacDorman, Karl F.; Human-Centered Computing, School of Informatics and Computing
Care for chronic disease requires patient adherence to treatment advice. Nonadherence worsens health outcomes and increases healthcare costs. When healthcare professionals are in short supply, a virtual physician could serve as a persuasive technology to promote adherence. However, acceptance of advice may be hampered by the uncanny valley effect—a feeling of eeriness elicited by human simulations. In a hypothetical virtual doctor consultation, 441 participants assumed the patient’s role. Variables from the stereotype content model and the heuristic–systematic model were used to predict adherence intention and behavior change. This 2 × 5 between-groups experiment manipulated the doctor’s bedside manner—either good or poor—and virtual depiction at five levels of realism. These independent variables were designed to manipulate the doctor’s level of warmth and eeriness. In hypothesis testing, depiction had a nonsignificant effect on adherence intention and diet and exercise change, even though the 3-D computer-animated versions of the doctor (i.e., animation, swapped, and bigeye) were perceived as eerier than the others (i.e., real and cartoon). The low-warmth, high-eeriness doctor prompted heuristic processing of information, while the high-warmth doctor prompted systematic processing. This pattern contradicts evidence reported in the persuasion literature. For the stereotype content model, a path analysis found that good bedside manner increased the doctor’s perceived warmth significantly, which indirectly increased physical activity. For the heuristic–systematic model, the doctor’s eeriness, measured in a pretest, had no significant effect on adherence intention and physical activity, while good bedside manner increased both significantly. Surprisingly, cognitive perspective-taking was a stronger predictor of change in physical activity than adherence intention. Although virtual characters can elicit the uncanny valley effect, their effect on adherence intention and physical activity was comparable to a video of a real person. This finding supports the development of virtual consultations.
Das unheimliche Tal. Übersetzung aus dem Japanischen
(Zenodo, 2019) Mori, Masahiro; MacDorman, Karl F.; Schwind, Valentin; Human-Centered Computing, School of Informatics and Computing
The doctor’s digital double: how warmth, competence, and animation promote adherence intention
(2018-11) Dai, Zhengyan; MacDorman, Karl F.; Human-Centered Computing, School of Informatics and Computing
Background Each year, patient nonadherence to treatment advice costs the US healthcare system more than $300 billion and results in 250,000 deaths. Developing virtual consultations to promote adherence could improve public health while cutting healthcare costs and usage. However, inconsistencies in the realism of computer-animated humans may cause them to appear eerie, a phenomenon termed the uncanny valley. Eeriness could reduce a virtual doctor’s credibility and patients’ adherence. Methods In a 2 × 2 × 2 between-groups posttest-only experiment, 738 participants played the role of a patient in a hypothetical virtual consultation with a doctor. The consultation varied in the doctor’s Character (good or poor bedside manner), Outcome (received a fellowship or sued for malpractice), and Depiction (a recorded video of a real human actor or of his 3D computer-animated double). Character, Outcome, and Depiction were designed to manipulate the doctor’s level of warmth, competence, and realism, respectively. Results Warmth and competence increased adherence intention and consultation enjoyment, but realism did not. On the contrary, the computer-animated doctor increased adherence intention and consultation enjoyment significantly more than the doctor portrayed by a human actor. We propose that enjoyment of the animated consultation caused the doctor to appear warmer and more real, compensating for his realism inconsistency. Expressed as a path model, this explanation fit the data. Discussion The acceptance and effectiveness of the animation should encourage the development of virtual consultations, which have advantages over creating content with human actors including ease of scenario revision, internationalization, localization, personalization, and web distribution.
In the uncanny valley, transportation predicts narrative enjoyment more than empathy, but only for the tragic hero
(Elsevier, 2019-05) MacDorman, Karl F.; Human-Centered Computing, School of Informatics and Computing
The uncanny valley is a term used to describe the phenomenon that human simulations that are nearly but not quite realistic often give viewers an uneasy, eerie feeling. Given the prevalence of computer-animated human characters and a narrative framework in videogames, serious games, and health-related scenarios, it is important to examine how the uncanny valley influences narrative empathy and enjoyment. In a 2 × 2 × 2 between-groups posttest-only experiment, 738 participants took the role of a patient in a virtual consultation with a doctor; the consultation varied in the doctor's character (hero or villain), its subplot ending (happy or tragic), and its depiction (computer animated or real). The participants' posttest results showed greater emotional empathy and enjoyment in the hero condition and no significant difference in emotional empathy for the computer animation but greater narrative enjoyment and persuasion. Just endings (hero rewarded, villain punished) elicited much greater pleasure than unjust endings. In comparing computer animation with recorded video, emotional empathy was a significantly stronger predictor of narrative enjoyment than transportation only for the real hero with a tragic ending. The enjoyment and persuasiveness of the computer-animated doctor–patient consultation bodes well for the use of animation in interactive visual narratives.
Measuring the Uncanny Valley Effect
(Springer, 2017-01) Ho, Chin-Chang; MacDorman, Karl F.; BioHealth Informatics, School of Informatics and Computing
Using a hypothetical graph, Masahiro Mori proposed in 1970 the relation between the human likeness of robots and other anthropomorphic characters and an observer’s affective or emotional appraisal of them. The relation is positive apart from a U-shaped region known as the uncanny valley. To measure the relation, we previously developed and validated indices for the perceptual-cognitive dimension humanness and three affective dimensions: interpersonal warmth, attractiveness, and eeriness. Nevertheless, the design of these indices was not informed by how the untrained observer perceives anthropomorphic characters categorically. As a result, scatter plots of humanness vs. eeriness show the stimuli cluster tightly into categories widely separated from each other. The present study applies a card sorting task, laddering interview, and adjective evaluation ( N=30 ) to revise the humanness, attractiveness, and eeriness indices and validate them via a representative survey ( N=1311 ). The revised eeriness index maintains its orthogonality to humanness ( r=.04 , p=.285 ), but the stimuli show much greater spread, reflecting the breadth of their range in human likeness and eeriness. The revised indices enable empirical relations among characters to be plotted similarly to Mori’s graph of the uncanny valley. Accurate measurement with these indices can be used to enhance the design of androids and 3D computer animated characters.
Reducing consistency in human realism increases the uncanny valley effect; increasing category uncertainty does not
(Elsevier, 2016-01) MacDorman, Karl F.; Chattopadhyay, Debaleena; Human-Centered Computing, School of Informatics and Computing
Human replicas may elicit unintended cold, eerie feelings in viewers, an effect known as the uncanny valley. Masahiro Mori, who proposed the effect in 1970, attributed it to inconsistencies in the replica’s realism with some of its features perceived as human and others as nonhuman. This study aims to determine whether reducing realism consistency in visual features increases the uncanny valley effect. In three rounds of experiments, 548 participants categorized and rated humans, animals, and objects that varied from computer animated to real. Two sets of features were manipulated to reduce realism consistency. (For humans, the sets were eyes–eyelashes–mouth and skin–nose–eyebrows.) Reducing realism consistency caused humans and animals, but not objects, to appear eerier and colder. However, the predictions of a competing theory, proposed by Ernst Jentsch in 1906, were not supported: The most ambiguous representations—those eliciting the greatest category uncertainty—were neither the eeriest nor the coldest.
Sending an Avatar to Do a Human’s Job: Compliance with Authority Persists Despite the Uncanny Valley
(MIT Press, 2015) Patel, Himalaya; MacDorman, Karl F.; Human-Centered Computing, School of Informatics and Computing
Just as physical appearance affects social influence in human communication, it may also affect the processing of advice conveyed through avatars, computer-animated characters, and other human-like interfaces. Although the most persuasive computer interfaces are often the most human-like, they have been predicted to incur the greatest risk of falling into the uncanny valley, the loss of empathy attributed to characters that appear eerily human. Previous studies compared interfaces on the left side of the uncanny valley, namely, those with low human likeness. To examine interfaces with higher human realism, a between-groups factorial experiment was conducted through the internet with 426 midwestern U.S. undergraduates. This experiment presented a hypothetical ethical dilemma followed by the advice of an authority figure. The authority was manipulated in three ways: depiction (digitally recorded or computer animated), motion quality (smooth or jerky), and advice (disclose or refrain from disclosing sensitive information). Of these, only the advice changed opinion about the ethical dilemma, even though the animated depiction was significantly eerier than the human depiction. These results indicate that compliance with an authority persists even when using an uncannily realistic computer-animated double.

Browsing by Subject "anthropomorphism"

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