{"pk":27217,"title":"\"The Polar Express\" is Bipolar: Critical Film Reviews Influence\nUncanny Valley Phenomenon in Semi-Realistic Animation Films","subtitle":null,"abstract":"Previous research suggests that semi-realistic animation films\nsuch as The Polar Express are representative of the uncanny\nvalley (UV) hypothesis, which predicts that highly human-\nlike artificial characters can appear eerie. In the present study,\nwe investigated the extent to which critical film reviews can\ninfluence the perceived eeriness of such films. The reviews\nwere adopted from authentic ones and expressed either\nnegative or positive attitudes towards the animation\ntechniques. Audiovisual speech asynchrony, which is known\nto induce eeriness, was included as an objective manipulation.\nOur results showed large review tone effects for both implicit\nand explicit eeriness evaluations. In contrast, speech\nasynchrony failed to elicit significant effects. These results\ndemonstrate that critical film reviews representing opposite\nattitudinal poles can elicit consistent changes in the viewers’\nevaluations of semi-realistic animations. The present findings\ncannot, however, be taken as evidence against the UV\nhypothesis itself in computer-generated characters.","language":"eng","license":{"name":"","short_name":"","text":null,"url":""},"keywords":[{"word":"Uncanny Valley hypothesis; anthropomorphism;\nsocial influence; animation films"}],"section":"Posters: Papers","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4jb8r762","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Jari","middle_name":"","last_name":"Kätsyri","name_suffix":"","institution":"Maastricht University","department":""}],"date_submitted":null,"date_accepted":null,"date_published":"2017-01-01T18:00:00Z","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/27217/galley/16853/download/"}]}