DISTURBING VALLEY

Do you feel uncomfortable looking at this picture? A theory in the field of robotics argues that when anthropomorphic figures approach the appearance of a true human being, the latter's response will become more empathic, until it reaches a point from which it becomes a strong rejection. If the figure becomes even more similar, until it becomes almost indistinguishable from a true human being, the answer becomes positive again: this hole is called "the disquieting valley" or "inexplicable"

The term "disturbing valley" was created by Professor Masahiro Mori in 1970, as a metaphor to explain the curve of human reactions in the field of robotics, with the result that an artificial figure becomes more familiar to spectators giving it a human appearance, but only up at a certain point. The failure in this spectrum translates into disastrous experiments, such as the one with Pixar's "Tin Toy" (1988), in which the public had a strongly negative reaction to the child's character, which had been rendered "too" similar to a real child, but at the same time not enough.

Although its very name suggests that it can not be explained, various theories surrounding the disturbing valley indicate that the brain stimulation evaluation system is programmed to prevent us from selecting couples with health problems, and therefore making us refuse any suggestion that it can mean that a person is not suitable for reproduction or represents a danger to our conservation.

Thalia Wheatley, a psychologist from Darthmout College, has discovered in her research that our evolutionary history has accorded us to identify the smallest distortions, such as a detector of diseases or physical or mental problems. In this way, the "restlessness" of the disturbing valley could be nothing more than our natural defense response to diseases and death, designed to allow the perpetuation of the species.

The greater the similarity of an organism with our appearance, the greater the probability of contracting diseases of bacterial or viral origin, and this can give rise to the intensity of the waste. This would mean that the anomalies we observed in an android would have made us assimilate to seriously ill or dead people, triggering a repulsive reaction.

The unexplained theory of the valley, however, has been criticized by other robotics specialists, who argue that, since robots that are not similar to humans are not technically possible at the moment, the theory has insufficient bases. Ayse Saygin, a cognitive scientist at the University of California, said:

"We do not understand yet why it happens or if we can get used to it and people do not necessarily agree that they exist".

In any case, Saygin suggests, it is possible that what generates the feeling of restlessness is nothing but a form of cognitive dissonance: when you make certain characteristics similar to a human being, he says, you raise the expectations of the brain with respect to certain behaviors , as movements and facial expressions. When these expectations are not fully met, disharmony is generated in the brain.

The researchers suggest that, beyond the field of robotics, the possibility of better understanding the disturbing valley and its depths can help us to understand other aspects of the human mind, such as the functioning of empathy.

Had you experienced this phenomenon before?