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Bar-Cohen : Biomimetics: Biologically Inspired Technologies DK3163_c006 Final Proof page 191 21.9.2005 2:56am

Robotic Mechanisms 191

Figure 6.9 (See color insert following page 302) ‘‘Mask,’’ a 5 in. self-portrait by Ron Mueck, a graduate of Jim
Henson Creature Shop, a leading animatronics studio. (Photo by Mark Feldman [Feldman, 2002 website]. With
permission.)

Figure 6.10 Sociable robot, Leonardo of MIT; on the right shown in a learning game or task (From Breazeal, C.,
Buchsbaum, D., Gray, J., Gatenby, D. and Blumberg, B. Rocha, L. and Almedia e Costa, F. (Eds), Artificial Life,
Forthcoming 2005. With permission.)

technology. This hesitation is a point of some debate in the AI community, with most roboticists
believing that cartoon identities are OK, but humanlike ones are not.
One of the most cited manifestations of this argument, the theory of the Uncanny Valley,
appeared in a 1975 essay by Japanese robotics researcher Masahiro Mori (Reichardt, 1978). Here,
Mori speculated that as an anthropomorphic object looks and acts more realistically human, it will
receive increasingly favorable reaction, but only up to a limited point of realism (see Figure 6.11).
After this node, however, the viewer starts to become more distracted by flaws in humanoid
demeanor, such that the object will soon become highly disturbing to a person. This graphic
depression in favorable opinion is the valley of Mori’s Uncanny Valley.
Mori further speculated that should the object increase sufficiently in realism, viewer opinion will
eventually rise back out of the valley, cross the neutral threshold of viewer opinion, and ultimately,