The Uncanny Valley in Pet-like Robots
Paweena Kongsansatean, Tien-Hao Wang, Yi-Tseng Lin · PDXScholar (Portland State University) · 2014
The uncanny valley theory explains the relationship between human’s emotional response and the “realistic” of robots particularly in the human-like robots. Nevertheless, this theory is still a debate issue in the robotic industry. Recently people are more familiar with animal-like robots in different fields of industry, such as entertainment and healthcare industry. With this reason, the research paper aims to challenge the “uncanny valley” theory in robotic animals in order to provide useful information for animal-like robots designing in the future. The data was conducted by using Qualtrics online survey to find the relationship between “realistic” appearance, “appealing”, and “pleasant” toward pet-like robots. The result appears to contradict the uncanny valley theory and it can be explained by stronger influence of “appealing”.