uncanny valley

English

Etymology

Calque of Japanese 不気味の谷 (ぶきみのたに, bukimi no tani), from Middle Chinese 不 (pjuw, “not”) + 氣味 (kì-mjɨ̀j, “sense, sentiment”, literally “taste and smell”) + Japanese の (no, noun modifier particle) + 谷 (たに, tani, “valley”). First used in 1970 by roboticist Masahiro Mori.

Noun

uncanny valley

1. (aesthetic, psychology) A range of appearances, mannerisms, and/or behaviors of a humanoid figure that are subtly different from human and thereby cause feelings of discomfort, such as fear or revulsion.
   • 2006, Sebastiano Bagnara, Gillian Crampton Smith, Theories and Practice in Interaction Design:

     However, when the robot is so similar that it may be momentarily mistaken for real, the transition has a local minimum characterized by a sudden decrease of familiarity, the "uncanny valley"—a dip of frustration due to unmet expectations.

   • 2007, Jonathon Keats, Control + Alt + Delete: A Dictionary of Cyberslang:

     Almost human in appearance, yet not quite, the characters in 3-D computer animations are more disturbing than overt caricatures. The realm these creatures occupy is called the uncanny valley […] .

   • 2015, Kathleen Richardson, An Anthropology of Robots and AI‎^[1], Routledge, →ISBN:

     More unusual is perhaps the appropriation of a psychoanalytical theory to robotics–which is, in effect, what the uncanny valley aims to do. Mori's own descriptions of the uncanny follow a similar pattern to Freud's, where he indicates the kinds of events, states, processes or objects that might provoke the uncanny valley, particularly the theme of the dead.

Translations

subtle differences from human behaviour that may cause negative reactions

• Arabic: وَادٍ غَرِيب (ar) m (wādin ḡarīb)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 恐怖谷 (kǒngbùgǔ)

• Finnish: outo laakso
• French: vallée dérangeante (fr) f
• German: Uncanny Valley n, Akzeptanzlücke f
• Italian: valle perturbante f
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Japanese: 不気味の谷 (ぶきみのたに, bukimi no tani)
• Polish: dolina niesamowitości f
• Portuguese: vale da estranheza m
• Russian: злове́щая доли́на f (zlovéščaja dolína)
• Spanish: valle inquietante m

Further reading

• uncanny valley on Wikipedia.Wikipedia