If you work in animation, play video games, watch movies, visit wax or animatronic museums (It's A Small World counts, right?), you know about the uncanny valley. It's that weird feeling you get when you see something that LOOKS real but acts artificially, or looks artificial but moves in a life-like fashion. The Polar Express is a good example of characters that just freak people out because they have such an amazing, life-like quality to the visuals (also see Beowolf, Final Fantasy, etc). This also comes up a lot with many of the humanoid robots people are building these days. I bring this up because there was a terrific post via BoingBoing from UCS San Diego about why our brains are so sensitive about the subject and the specific reasons that we experience the U/C at all. The researcher even did brain scans on subjects watching a set of standard human actions (nodding, drinking water, picking up a piece of paper, etc). They viewed the Human-like android, the same robot stripped of any humanizing qualities (skin, hair, eyeballs, etc) and the person the robot was designed after. It was those brains scans that helped the research team (led by Ayse Pinar Paygin) pinpoint exactly why we don't like the wrong mix of fakery.
It came down to what we as viewers expect. If we see a robot doing robot things, no problem. The same is true of a human doing human things. But, if you have a robot moving like a human (thanks motion capture) or a human moving in a robotic way, then the uncanny valley ensues.
I've always found the subject fascinating and knowing that it is about anticipation I hope will inform my own art.
