I’ve always enjoyed optical illusions. It’s fascinating to me that our brains interpret certain inputs in a way that changes them entirely, sometimes creating a moving image or a color that isn’t there. Despite the fact that we’re not seeing what’s really there, it is more interesting than unnerving to look at illusions. On the other hand, some images our brain sees literally, but they unsettle us greatly. An example of this is the infamous uncanny valley. 

The theory of the uncanny valley goes like this: people are fine with seeing things that don’t look like human beings, things that somewhat look like human beings and actual human beings. However, between “pretty close to humans” and “an actual human” there is the “very creepily resembles a human, but isn’t one” zone. That zone is the uncanny valley. It is called such because of this visual representation (click on the image on the link to make it larger):

Basically, this graph is showing that as human likeness increases, familiarity or empathetic response increases, until it plummets into a “valley” of “creepily close to humans” before going back up again to the most familiarity, which is for actual humans.

This theory helps to explain why Disney’s unrealistic-looking CGI princesses are adorable, and the hyper-realistic animated characters in Polar Express are pretty darn creepy. Another example is how Barbies are popular toys for children, and these humanoid robot/doll faces are nightmare fuel. (If you really don’t want to sleep tonight, here’s a singing robot lady who probably resides at the lowest point in the valley.)

Maybe this subject interests me for the same reason people love horror movies and thrill rides — people just like to freak themselves out sometimes. I choose the subtle creepy over the stomach dropping, but to each their own. However, the main reason I enjoy it is because I love learning about how the brain works, and why we as people like certain things and hate other things. YouTube personality and fellow guru of geeky subjects Vsauce has a great video on the topic, entitled “Why Are Things Creepy?” As a warning, there is definitely creepy imagery in the video, but if the topic interests you it’s a must-watch.

While you have to trudge through some unsettling images and videos to understand the theory completely, it’s kind of cool to know that our brains have an automatic defense against human impostors. If an alien robot race tried to visually imitate humanity, our brains wouldn’t be having any of that. Also, this knowledge allows me to do something I’ve been meaning to do — send a report on the uncanny valley theory to Price Chopper, which somehow thinks that putting human teeth on their puffball mascots is OK.