Uncanny Uneasiness

I don't know if this is true, but it sounds plausible:

When Pixar screened a computer-animated short film called "Tin Toy" in 1988, test audiences hated the sight of the pseudo-realistic baby named "Billy" who terrorized the toys. Such a strong reaction persuaded Pixar to avoid making uncannily realistic human characters ...

If scientists don't know why the Uncanny Valley bothers humans, I have a few ideas about it.

Flesh and blood humans know how their counterparts on a screen are supposed to look. And digital "almost" humans aren't it. The face is off. The eyes resemble glass. Skin textures are too android-like.

Try this mind experiment: Think about the movie entitled Titanic. (It's out now at an AMC near you in genuine fake 3-D, so it's easy to get a quick memory freshener.)

Now think about Titanic if it had been done, stem to stern, with mocap actors and digital sets.

Still a grabber for you? Still emotionally involving? I'm betting "nope." Seeing digital replicas of Leo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Kathy Bates and the rest of the passengers would have pushed audiences away.

"Evolutionary history has tuned us to detect minor distortions that indicate disease, mental or physical problems," [psychologist Thalia] Wheatley explained. "To go after a human-looking robot or avatar is to go up against millions of years of evolutionary history." ...

Dr. Wheatley's analysis goes a long way toward explaining why America didn't clasp The Adventures of Tintin to its heart. As with Titanic, there was adventure on a ship. And there was a narrow escape in a life boat with a kid about Mr. DiCaprio's age. But there were no actual human beings.

So people watched the near-duplicates on a big, 3-D screen and squirmed in their seats. Why? Because the prehistoric parts of their brains whispered "sick ... sick ... sick."