Social, But Still Uncanny

The Uncanny Valley effect is a famous hypothesis. Whether it can be influenced by context is still unclear. In an online experiment, Katharina Kühne and her co-authors Oliver Bendel, Yuefang Zue, and Martin Fischer found a negative linear relationship between a robot’s human likeness and its likeability and trustworthiness, and a positive linear relationship between a robot’s human likeness and its uncaniness. „Social context priming improved overall likability and trust of robots but did not modulate the Uncanny Valley effect.“ (Abstract) Katharina Kühne outlined these conclusions in her presentation „Social, but Still Uncanny“ – the title of the paper – on 25 October 2024 at the International Conference on Social Robotics 2024 in Odense, Denmark. Like Yuefang Zue and Martin Fischer, she is a researcher at the University of Potsdam. Oliver Bendel teaches and researches at the FHNW School of Business. Together with Tamara Siegmann, he presented a second paper at the ICSR.

Fig.: Katharina Kühne during her talk

Der Kontext des Uncanny-Valley-Effekts

Der Uncanny-Valley-Effekt ist eine berühmte Hypothese. Es ist bis heute unklar, ob er vom Kontext beeinflusst werden kann. Katharina Kühne hat mit ihren Mitautoren Oliver Bendel, Yuefang Zue und Martin Fischer in einem Onlineexperiment eine negative lineare Beziehung zwischen der Menschenähnlichkeit eines Roboters und seiner Sympathie und Vertrauenswürdigkeit gefunden, zugleich eine positive lineare Beziehung zwischen der Menschenähnlichkeit eines Roboters und seiner Unheimlichkeit. „Social context priming improved overall likability and trust of robots but did not modulate the Uncanny Valley effect.“ (Abstract) Die Schlussfolgerungen wird Katharina Kühne in ihrer Präsentation „Social, but Still Uncanny“ – so auch der Titel des Papers – bei der International Conference on Social Robotics 2024 in Odense (Dänemark) ziehen. Die Doktorandin forscht wie Yuefang Zue und Martin Fischer (Erstbetreuer) an der Universität Potsdam. Oliver Bendel (Zweitbetreuer) lehrt und forscht an der Hochschule für Wirtschaft FHNW. Er ist zusammen mit Tamara Siegmann mit einem zweiten Paper bei der ICSR vertreten.

Abb.: Letztes Jahr fand die ICSR in Doha statt

BABYCLON, a Robotic Baby

The Copernicus Science Centre’s exhibition „The Future is Now“ helps to face and understand the challenges of today’s world in all its complexity. „It shows different technological solutions and encourages to look at them in a critical way. It also takes notice of the relationships between our personal values and the values of others.“ (CSC website) The exhibition is divided into three parts. Two of them can already be visited: „Digital Brain?“ and „Mission: Earth“. The last part („Human 2.0“) is scheduled to open on 15 October 2024. Part of the „Digital Brain“ („#Relationships“) is BABYCLON, a robotic baby. According to the organizers, this will allow visitors to test the uncanny valley effect on themselves. „Are we ready to meet our machine lookalikes? Not really. It turns out that the more indistinguishable from humans a robot is, the weirder feelings it evokes. See for yourself if the ‚uncanny valley‘ effect works on you.“ (CSC website) This is not exactly what the uncanny valley thesis means. It is about very high expectations of very human-like robots, which are then disappointed by, for example, Sophie’s weird smile or BABYCLON’s strange behavior. More information at www.kopernik.org.pl/en/education-and-information-campaigns/exhibition-future-today.

Fig.: The robot baby (Photo: Katharina Kühne)