Can looking at a hand make your skin crawl? Peering into the uncanny valley for hands
Abstract
It is postulated that there is an uncanny valley, whereby human-like stimuli such as robots or animated characters that fall short of being fully human are perceived as eerie or unsettling. Previous research has explored the existence of this effect for faces and whole bodies, while here we explore responses to photographs of real and artificial hands. In keeping with the notion of an uncanny valley, prosthetic hands that were of intermediate human-likeness were given the highest ratings of eeriness. However, within the categories of hands, ratings of eeriness reduced as human-likeness increased, suggesting a more complex pattern. Further investigation of this effect will be of relevance to the design of prosthetic limbs and could be used to test theories of the uncanny valley and social perception with simple stimuli.
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One study showed that pictures of intermediate prosthetic hands were more eerie than pictures of either mechanical or human hands (Poliakoff et al., 2013).
“As an exception, one study showed that pictures of intermediate prosthetic hands were more eerie than pictures of either mechanical or human hands (Poliakoff et al., 2013).”
From A review of empirical evidence on different uncanny valley hypotheses: support for perceptual mismatch as one road to the valley of eeriness (2015) · cites this paper as Poliakoff et al., 2013
Nonlinear uncanny valley effects were found only in two studies: Poliakoff et al. (2013) on images of hands and Study II in Burleigh et al. (2013) on a continuous CG modification between nonhuman and human faces.
“Nonlinear uncanny valley effects were found only in two studies that had studied images of hands (Poliakoff et al., 2013 and a continuous CG modification between nonhuman and human faces (Study II in Burleigh et al., 2013).”
From A review of empirical evidence on different uncanny valley hypotheses: support for perceptual mismatch as one road to the valley of eeriness (2015) · cites this paper as Poliakoff et al., 2013
Cites
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Kätsyri, J., Förger, K., Mäkäräinen, M., & Takala, T. (2015) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00390 · Cited by 500 · see citing works
Is the Prosthetic Homologue Necessary for Embodiment?
Dornfeld, C., Swanston, M., Cassella, J., Beasley, C., Green, J., Moshayev, Y., & Wininger, M. (2016) · Frontiers in Neurorobotics · doi:10.3389/fnbot.2016.00021 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
- Authors
- Poliakoff, E., Beach, N., Best, R., Howard, T., & Gowen, E.
- Affiliations
- University of Manchester (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Poliakoff, Ellen
- Venue
- Perception
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2013-01-01
- Volume
- 42
- Issue
- 9
- Pages
- 998-1000
- ISSN
- 0301-0066 (ISSN-L)
- 1468-4233
- OpenAlex
- W2167445051
- Cited by
- 55
- References
- 5
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 9 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 6 · 2014: 3
- FWCI
- 5.49
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Perception (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Research Explorer (The University of Manchester) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Social Robot Interaction and HRI
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Face Recognition and Perception
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Aesthetic Perception and Analysis
- Keywords
- uncanny valley, hand, prosthetic hand, human-likeness, eeriness, social perception, artificial hand, body perception, prosthetic limb design
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Artificial Limbs, Emotions, Female, Hand, Humans, Male, Visual Perception, Recognition, Psychology, Young Adult
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