A Mismatch in the Human Realism of Face and Voice Produces an Uncanny Valley

Abstract

The uncanny valley has become synonymous with the uneasy feeling of viewing an animated character or robot that looks imperfectly human. Although previous uncanny valley experiments have focused on relations among a character's visual elements, the current experiment examines whether a mismatch in the human realism of a character's face and voice causes it to be evaluated as eerie. The results support this hypothesis.