School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom.
PLoS One. 2022 Sep 1;17(9):e0273861. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0273861. eCollection 2022.
Humanlike entities deviating from the norm of human appearance are perceived as strange or uncanny. Explanations for the eeriness of deviating humanlike entities include ideas specific to human or animal stimuli like mate selection, avoidance of threat or disease, or dehumanization; however, deviation from highly familiar categories may provide a better explanation. Here it is tested whether experts and novices in a novel (greeble) category show different patterns of abnormality, attractiveness, and uncanniness responses to distorted and averaged greebles. Greeble-trained participants assessed the abnormality, attractiveness, uncanniness of normal, averaged, and distorted greebles and their responses were compared to participants who had not previously seen greebles. The data show that distorted greebles were more uncanny than normal greebles only in the training condition, and distorted greebles were more uncanny in the training compared to the control condition. In addition, averaged greebles were not more attractive than normal greebles regardless of condition. The results suggest uncanniness is elicited by deviations from stimulus categories of expertise rather than being a purely biological human- or animal-specific response.
与人类外貌标准偏离的类人实体被视为陌生或怪异。对偏离的类人实体的怪异的解释包括特定于人类或动物刺激的想法，如配偶选择、避免威胁或疾病，或去人性化；然而，偏离高度熟悉的类别可能提供更好的解释。在这里，测试了在一个新的（greble）类别中的专家和新手对扭曲和平均化的 greble 是否表现出不同的异常、吸引力和怪异反应。受过 greble 训练的参与者评估了正常、平均和扭曲的 greble 的异常、吸引力和怪异程度，将他们的反应与之前没有见过 greble 的参与者进行了比较。数据显示，只有在训练条件下，扭曲的 greble 比正常的 greble 更怪异，而且在训练条件下，扭曲的 greble 比控制条件下更怪异。此外，无论条件如何，平均化的 greble 并不比正常的 greble 更有吸引力。结果表明，怪异感是由刺激类别偏离专业知识引起的，而不是纯粹的生物人类或动物特异性反应。
