Plethrons What's Beyond the Obvious
The creepiness of the Uncanny Valley is wonderfully demonstrated by John Bergeron’s Singing Androids.
Uncanny humanoids, like all creepy things, straddle a line between two regions that we can understand and explain with language. Francis T. McAndrew and Sara Koehnke describe being ‘creeped out‘ as an adaptive human response to the ambiguity of threats from others. Creepy things are kind of a threat, maybe, but they’re also kind of not. So, our brains don’t know what to do. Some parts respond with fear, while other parts don’t, and they don’t know why. So, instead of achieving a typical fear response, we simply feel uneasy, terror, creeped out. We don’t do well with ambiguity. When it involves our own intentions, it can make us lie. And when it involves danger, but no recognizable threat, it can make us think and feel some pretty weird things. Have you ever peered over a ledge, a railing, way high-up, like, so high-up it made you feel nervous and dizzy, and felt something pushing you? Maybe even an urge to jump? Have you ever stood on the ledge with a loved one and realize that you could push them? It would be that easy. You really could do it, and maybe you do want to do it, or maybe it’s just cognitive dissonance the fact that your brain is having to deal with ambiguity.
