Bertrand Tondu and Nicole Bardou
Uncanny valley, humanoid robots, social robots
Mori’s graph and the uncanny valley concept that it includes is an invitation to us to think about the future integration of humanoid robots into their social environment. We propose a reinterpretation of Mori’s graph based on a topological analysis which leads to respecifying each side of the uncanny valley and highlighting the key role played by the zombie figure at the bottom of the valley. In our approach, Mori’s graph would be divided into a left-hand machine field whose beings are deprived of a soul, and a right-hand human being field. The uncanny effect attached to a highly biomimetic robot would find its origin in a cognitive dissonance faced with a machine felt to be too close to the bound between these two fields. Heider’s balance theory is considered to specify the task dependency of the uncanny valley, which can be expressed by associating to the uncanny valley effect – and so to the uncanny valley depth according to Mori’s graph image – a “balance degree of the social situation in which the human-like machine is involved."
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