Perception of psychopathy and the Uncanny Valley in virtual characters

Virtual characters with a realistic, human-like appearance are increasingly being used in video games and animation. However, increased realism does not necessarily imply increased acceptance and factors such as aberrant facial expression may evoke the Uncanny Valley phenomenon. In humans, personality traits such as anger, callousness, coldness, dominance, being unconcerned, and untrustworthiness are associated with psychopathy; a visual facial marker of this condition being a lack of visible response in the eye region to emotive situations. As such, the present study investigated if inadequate upper facial animation in human-like virtual characters evoked the uncanny due to a perception of psychopathic traits within a character. The results revealed that virtual characters that showed a lack of a startle response to a scream sound were regarded as most uncanny and perceptions of personality traits associated with psychopathy were a strong predictor of reported uncanniness but, that other negative personality traits not associated with psychopathy were not. The study presents possible psychological drivers of uncanniness to inform designers why a lack of detail in a character’s upper face when portraying a startle response may evoke perception of specific negative personality traits in a character, to help control the uncanny in character design.

► We examine viewer perception of psychopathic traits and the uncanny in characters. ► Characters that showed a lack of a startle response were rated as most uncanny. ► Personality traits associated with psychopathy did predict reported uncanniness.