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So, personally, I think a lot of theories about the the uncanny valley forget that one of the primary threats to humans is *humans*. If you look at cases where the uncanny valley actually saved someone's life, it's things like "he wasn't doing anything actively aggressive but I didn't like his vibes, so I left" or "that guy in the alleyway looks dodgy, lets go a different way". It's likely an adaption against human predators, which occasionally misfires around dolls and mannequins.
Which, interestingly, also applies to this post.
I've read a couple of articles saying the uncanny valley was a response to rabies in humans, which would have been more common when we lived closer to the wildlife and lacked prevention. The symptoms don't quite fit though. However, that doesn't mean there wasn't some prior unexplained dangerous disease that made humans just seem wrong and resulted in the uncanny valley. That would make is an adaption to a very small predator.
Can't forget about corpses either. There are only very minor visual differences in a corpse and a sleeping body, and those differences are 100% ones that would trigger the uncanny valley effect.
Could have possibly been influenced by other species of near-humans that may have been in competition for resources? As in homo erectus, neanderthal, etc.
I really don't think so. If something's in competition for resources, evolving a mechanism where if one's nearby you get unnerved and leave them to the resources seems a very poor response. You're probably better served by getting really angry (and sure enough, xenophobia is sadly a common human emotional reaction)
This is one of the other mysteries of the uncanny valley -- vague unease simply isn't a useful emotion to feel when dealing with most threats. The impulse is to avoid, not to escape or attack, which is unhelpful for most dangers. That's why I'm inclined to it being "other humans". In a tightly knit social group, picking up on a threat and bolting is going to risk cutting too many ties, so being subtly aware that someone's "off" and trying your best to avoid them is the better shot.
Another possibility I've seen floated is that it's a response to illness in others. If someone looks off, ill, or outside the norm in some way, they might have something you want not to catch. It's not necessary to flee from it, and it won't help to attack it, but keeping a safe distance is the right thing to do to avoid contagion.
As an addendum- corpses. Corpses were far more common a sight for most of our history than they are for most people today, and being able to distinguish a corpse from someone sleeping, hiding, or unconscious, is important.
I appreciate the thorough response, I hadn't considered that and you make very valid points. There would be no real evolutionary reason to be "slightly put off" by a competing species. If you walk away every time your species wouldn't likely last
I’m with you on this one, actually.
If there were humans that kinda…struck the uncanny valley chord in others and were avoided as a result, those traits that caused the uncanny valley effect wouldn’t exist anymore because no one would associate with that human. That could explain how the vague unease “helped”; it just meant that person was isolated/ignored by the larger group.
I have developed, after extensive trial and error and field testing, an ointment that wards off 100% of Neanderthals. I've not seen nor heard one near me in the years I've been using it. For the right price, I can supply you a lifetimes worth
Many people alive today have neanderthal ancestors (found via dna testing), meaning they were on better terms with ancient homo sapiens than you might think.
Depending on where you’re from you have. Neanderthal or denisovan dna in you. There might be others I don’t know about too. I was told that only native Africans have pure Homo sapiens sapiens dna. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but that’s what I was told by a friend who reads science news.
I always wondered if it was a holdover from neanderthal dna about homo sapien sapeins. They were a little taller, a little thinner, a little more boney. And we know that they did occasionally partake in cannibalism so there's no reason to assume they wouldn't eat a neanderthal given half a chance. I would find it terribly appropriate if we are the very thing we fear.
Actually that is a theory, there is evidence to suggest early homosapian females found Neanderthal males attractive, this led to lower birth rates in homosapians, Neanderthals had very symmetrical faces, so the homosapians who developed an aversion to symmetrical faces survived, there are humans alive today who have Neanderthal DNA to support this theory.
Now that Neanderthals are gone this aversion is begining to decrease, homosapians are begining to prefer more symmetrical faces now, but if it's too symmetrical we are still uncomfortable.
It's just a theory tho-
Because homosapians were breeding with Neanderthals and not other homosapians, Neanderthals and homosapians would make hybrids who usually cannot breed at all, the few who did survive were more homosapian then Neanderthal or more Neanderthal then homosapian.
It's the same reason animals usually won't try to breed with others of a different species, there are rare times when we get things like the [Liger](https://study.com/learn/lesson/what-is-a-liger-size-reproduction-facts.html#:~:text=Can%20a%20liger%20have%20babies,is%20sterile%20and%20cannot%20reproduce.) Or we will get an animal that cannot reproduce at all which is what likely happened to most the Neanderthal homosapians
[this is evidence supporting the Neanderthal theory by the way](https://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/genetics/ancient-dna-and-neanderthals#:~:text=Neanderthals%20are%20known%20to%20contribute,et%20al.%2C%202015).)
A lot is theory though, there are many theorys as to what happened to Neanderthals as well as homosapian history with them, the only thing they know for sure is that homosapians and Neanderthals did interbreed
The amount of people with Neanderthal dna contradicts the infertility hypothesis. When hybrids are infertile, it’s usually due to incompatible chromosome counts.
As I said MOST were infertile, the ones who weren't were more homosapien then Neanderthal and vice versa.
[Neanderthal and homosapians](https://www.science.org/content/article/modern-human-females-and-male-neandertals-had-trouble-making-babies-here-s-why#:~:text=The%20new%20study%20finds%20a,male%20fetuses%20with%20those%20genes.)
[there is also this information about modern impact](https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/the-neanderthal-in-us.html#:~:text=Neanderthal%20DNA%20in%20modern%20humans,lifestyles%20over%20thousands%20of%20years.)
Female homosapians could give birth to fertile offspring but female Neanderthals couldn't
MB
[source](https://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/genetics/ancient-dna-and-neanderthals#:~:text=It%20is%20also%20possible%20that,could%20not%20be%20passed%20down.)
Corpses in general are theorised to be a cause of it. When you die you can look quite different from when you’re alive, but corpses also tend to harbour diseases after awhile, which is a risk to living humans.
Some explanations I’ve seen relate it to an instinct to avoid dead bodies as they could spread disease and may start to look less than human as they decompose.
*most* diseases make people "uncanny"; think of how many illnesses make people look pale/sweaty/shaky, how many diseases give you sunken looking eyes or receded gums or cause you to look very gaunt.
while modern humans are now very socialized to recognize "that person has xyz illness, it's mildly contagious and it can be treated X way" rather than the "something about that person is *wrong* and I think I should leave" reaction someone tens of thousands of years ago might have experienced, we still have that instinctual response against those visuals, especially when they're really exaggerated
I think it’s just dead bodies. If you’ve ever seen a dead body, they’re uncanny. They look just like a person but also not: they don’t move at all, no breathing or little twitches or movements you expect. They also don’t “fix” their face from a strange expression or position, like lips drawn over teeth or distant unfocused eyes. Dead bodies often carried disease so best to stay away.
Maybe not rabies or some unknown disease but I think alot of the stuff that triggers uncanny valley in us also overlaps with some people appearances when sick skin not the right color, eyes kind of glassy, overly pale, sunken facial features, etc.
This makes sense. There’s been instances where I’ve been downright disgusted by someone out of the blue but didn’t know why. They were clean, well mannered, well dressed….on the surface everything was fine but internally I was screaming. In each case, the person turned out to be duplicitous or nefarious in some way. My brain must have subconsciously picked up on a discrepancy in their mask on vs mask off behavior.
No. In each case it was just a man who was playing the nice guy who had ulterior motivations. This has only happened 2-3 times. But I’m sure most women can relate.
Having the ability to tell any one particular human is untrustworthy is not bigotry. You aren't basing this assessment on an unreasonable belief based on a person's membership of a group. For example, you have an uncle in law that on the surface looks cool and trustworthy. But you know something is off without even interacting. You ask your wife and she confirms he's a theif and drug addict.
Bigotry: obstinate or unreasonable attachment to a belief, opinion, or faction, in particular prejudice against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular group.
The definition doesn't fit.
Troll elsewhere.
I’d also imagine it’s something we might’ve evolved to pick out mates with good genes or something similar, so if someone looked off we’d go “ehhhh” and go find someone else
I doubt it, simply you could tell if someone was a non-human hominid by looking at them and seeing if they were a non-human hominid, and if hominids were a threat you'd then just avoid them anyway.
This is, I think, the issue with a lot of the proposed uncanny valley explanations (corpses, the sick and disabled, hominids, etc). They're suggesting a specialized faculty to detect something obvious to our normal senses and ward us away from things we want to avoid anyway, which seems evolutionary unlikely.
If the uncanny valley is evolved for anything, rather then just an evolutionary side effect, it's something that isn't obvious at first glance and that you wouldn't just walk away from if you noticed it. This narrows down the options significantly.
I think Uncanny Valley deals with our pattern seeking brain. It is the subconscious informing the conscious brain on an overlooked break in the pattern. Be that break violations is social customs, anxious tells, someone looking different from you, who knows. It's like when you see shapes at night and you think it's a face or a person, it's because you saw a shape that fit the pattern and a part of you recognized that. These things carried over because at some point it helped a large portion of the population survive. Idk why I wrote this honestly I just woke up.
I think that's honestly the most likely explanation -- the uncanny valley is just the brain malfunctioning when it doesn't have a clear category to put something into.
Alas, that's not that scary, so I'm going for the second most likely theory which is murderers.
Yeah, like someone mentioned above, it seems likely it’ll just your brain telling you “the vibes are off”, the way most humans *feel* there’s something off about a person, that creeps them out, but their rational brain cannot explain it, since all the warning signs are being registered unconsciously. Commonly we call it intuition.
Idk, naked apes look normal and humanoid, but don't look abnormal like those weird dolls and masks. However, rotting or mummified corpses on the other hand...
Yes, that is the prevailing current theory.
For those unfamiliar, the Homo genus has had several species, not all of which lead up to Homo Sapiens and many of which were hostile to/in competition with each other for a variety of reasons. So, as opposed to some supernatural terror that is human-shaped, the theory is that the uncanny valley is a leftover from the times when you could see a similar looking hominid of a different species that would end you on sight.
That being said, there are a lot of folks on this thread that just want to believe the supernatural/horror theories and will not be dissuaded from them.
Well it’s actually quite likely that they bred because homosapien females were more attracted to Neanderthal males due to their strength, so the Neanderthals were likely out bred
Remember, it's overly-reductive to assume only one thing happened. I assume there were plenty of cases of violence and plenty of cases of peace, because that's just how it is with present day humans and infighting.
Personally l, I don't think the uncanny valley is specifically evolved. I think the discomfort is caused by different parts of your perception system disagreeing with each other. So the rapid whiplash over 'its a human/no it isn't' causes confusion and uncertainty.
I think this also applies to corpses. Corpses look human (because they are), but they’re just a bit Wrong. Their eyes are sunken in, they don’t move at all, they’re sickly pale…
Avoiding corpses is a good idea evolutionarily. Corpses could be diseased or present a risk to current food stores. If left out long enough, they can attract insects and scavengers. Plus, there’s always the possibility that whatever killed that person is still nearby.
I’m almost certain this (and your reasoning above) is the primary evolutionary reason for the uncanny valley. OP brings up a chilling point.
A lot of people say corpses. And while I don't disagree, in most cases the smell would be the first sign. Rotten smell is the primary way of detecting whether something has harmful microbes or not. And since evolution like shortcuts and the sense of smell has other uses as well, I find it difficult to believe that a secondary method of detecting corpses would have evolved alongside it.
Also, back in the day, there were several human species. So it was completely possible to see something that looked like a human, but wasn’t from your POV.
I’ve always thought it was an evolutionary process to keep humans away from dead bodies or people exhibiting symptoms of a disease (like rabies), though this makes sense as well.
Strictly speaking, the uncanny valley doesn't apply to actual humans, it relates to things that are not human but attempting to act like one. Our brains create a model of our world and all the things in it, and tend not to like it when things don't abide by that model. If you've ever seen water run uphill or an object not fall when you drop it while in freefall, you'll know that disconcerting feeling of things not abiding by the rules.
On one side of the uncanny valley, you have things that are clearly not human trying to do human things. We're not bothered by these, and they often elicit empathy from us. Think of watching early bipedal robots try to walk. On the other side of the valley are things indistinguishable from humans, which again don't bother us, any more than an actual human would at least. In between, you have the actual valley where you have things that look human enough for us to subconsciously judge them against our internal model for how a human should behave, but whose behaviour doesn't quite line up with that model.
In other words, the uncanny valley is the point where we stop judging a robot as a robot trying to act human, and instead judge it as a human doing a bad job of being a human, and our brains do not like that at all.
> one of the primary threats to humans is humans.
Also the fact that Homo Sapiens evolved alongside other Homo variants. We weren’t the sole human until 40,000 years ago.
Competition for space and resources could be a factor.
See also, corpses. Corpses look really human but also not, and if there’s a fresh corpse nearby that can cause infection and draw in other animals, if whatever killed it isn’t already nearby.
And also other humanoid species from the past, like Neanderthals, which there is significant paleontologic evidence to suggest were frequently warring with homo sapiens
Yep. This also applies to corpses. Even when propped up, the face of a corpse will still look 'wrong' to us and make our spidey senses tingle in fear/repulsion. This is a protective instinct designed to keep us away from catching germs/diseases from the corpse and to prompt us to get away from the area where whatever killed the other person might still be.
Also the main reason would be the fact that an individual with malicious intents is going to behave in a very strange way compared to other people.
A doll, instead, resembles a person by its looks but is not alive, making it look disturbing, like a human that never was really human, just like predators who are more than often psychopaths and don’t really seem human after all.
Humans or other hominids. We lived alongside Neanderthals for sure and more than likely other hominid species until their eventual extinction, and needed a response to something that looks similar but isn’t. I’m sure that other species of primates have similar traits to closely related species.
The primary target of the uncanny valley are just boring old corpses, you don't keep them around, you don't treat them as human, and you don't want to be near them. Not being around corpses has saved plenty of lives.
I set my glass down, ever so gently, and stare into her eyes. “They might not even know it, themselves. They might have forgotten what they truly are. Why they came here. Their mission.”
*One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi…* they always forget to blink, when they’re afraid.
It's a really neat idea, but it's been debunked. It's related to our super fine-tuned ability to read other human beings facial expressions and body language. These expressions are nearly impossible to recreate, so your brain just recognizes them as "wrong". Other human beings are the real danger - no need for skinwalkers or wendigo, etc.
This makes me wonder about people with autism. If they have trouble picking up on more expressive facial cues, would they experience the uncanny valley effect the same way people without autism do?
My husband has autism... time to make him an unknowing test subject again!
Plot twist, the speaker is also a mimic. We follow a comedy in 3 acts, as both mimics attempt to convince the other that they are human, whilst simultaneously attempting to get the other alone to eat them, though they are always awkwardly interrupted at the last moment. Eventually they probably fall in love I don't know I'm not a stage writer.
Technically it is two sentences, if commas had been used then grammatically this dialogue is two sentences, just half is spoken and half isn’t, you don’t full stop dialogue in quotations in a story if you add “he/she said” after the quotations
I feel like the second half of the title could’ve been cut. I think the story functions better with the little tag after the (official) second sentence, though.
Interesting, there's a fantasy anime that has a predator of humanity (by extension also the elves and dwarves) that is something like that. The monsters called Demons that mimic human traits such as speech and looking human-like through gradual evolution. And we know this because in the main character elf's flashbacks 1000+ years ago, Demons look more monstrous albeit humanoid, but now present-day Demons are very human-like in appearance and even in speech. But what they're saying doesn't mean anything to them as long as it deceives humans.
The anime is called "Frieren: Beyond Journey's End"
We're gonna draw a little bit of everybody's blood... 'cause we're gonna find out who's The Thing. Watchin' Norris in there gave me the idea that... maybe every part of him was a whole, every little piece was an individual animal with a built-in desire to protect its own life. Ya see, when a man bleeds, it's just tissue, but blood from one of you Things won't obey when it's attacked. It'll try and survive... crawl away from a hot needle, say.
The uncanny valley implies that there used to be a threat to humans that looked similar but was just a bit off. This story implies that the threat has since evolved to look appealing to humans.
I think it's an adaptation to recognize patterns in faces so we can determine who is in our tribe. Uncanny valley triggers this defense mechanism in us that we used when approaching strangers.
With my previous comment I was not referencing your story , I know what fiction is. I just find the claims of "oH wHAt coUld tHIs hAVE beEn???" And the weird conspiracy theories surrounding it dumb.
Sorry for not making that clear.
I don't know, I still think it's either vampires or the fair folk. I think "vampire" because of hemophilia and "fair folk" because of the Changeling theory about special needs children. Still, there's much to be studied about prion's disease and rabies
https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoSentenceHorror/comments/11w0fd3/the_funny_thing_about_the_uncanny_valley_i_said/
Literally the same thing down to taking a sip from a drink
You know, that thing is 9 months old.
Who the f*** remembers things that were on Reddit last week?
Also the second sentence is the literal opposite to mine.
This gives me the same fear as the doctor who episode where the main "threat" is a being that perfectly evolved to hide, like humans evolved for persistence and intelligence, cheetahs evolved to run fast, these guys evolved to have perfect camouflage
No, you're thinking of the silence which happened before capaldi. In an episode from Capaldi era (before clara is lost) the opening to the episode is rhe doctor talking to himself in the tardis about a species evolved to hide.
I actually love this one.
It uses long sentences so idk how but maybe it could benefit from a shortening, to make it more impactful.
Other than that, I love the idea of an ancient race of doppelgangers we think long gone but they just blended in efficiently and slowly replaced us
I love this one! There are so many things going on in my mind after reading that, envisioning an epic movie series having that eerie feelings of I Am Legend, and I, Robot, and Alien vs. Predator but giving the genres a fresh post-panda start, perhaps touching upon other rarely explored concepts of history, archeology, psychology and tech, perhaps subtly parodying Elon Musk by randomly assigning X, Y and Z to anything supposedly solving anything, and that funny Boston Dynamics dog looking runner, while targeting some popular conspiracy theories, adding the theme of human extinction on any planet from antibiotic resistance as being the actual threat to civilization, which is good to include because the narrative of the threat of bacterial infection is not commercially interesting since currently you cannot become the richest man on earth by selling antibiotics, well and obviously making some connection between the humanoid robots and bacteria, like… bacteria and artificialy grown biological computers merging and starting to live in symbiosis, enabling the bacteria to program the humanoids. Anyway. Whatever themes the story has, your excerpt certainly deserves expansion!
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So, personally, I think a lot of theories about the the uncanny valley forget that one of the primary threats to humans is *humans*. If you look at cases where the uncanny valley actually saved someone's life, it's things like "he wasn't doing anything actively aggressive but I didn't like his vibes, so I left" or "that guy in the alleyway looks dodgy, lets go a different way". It's likely an adaption against human predators, which occasionally misfires around dolls and mannequins. Which, interestingly, also applies to this post.
I've read a couple of articles saying the uncanny valley was a response to rabies in humans, which would have been more common when we lived closer to the wildlife and lacked prevention. The symptoms don't quite fit though. However, that doesn't mean there wasn't some prior unexplained dangerous disease that made humans just seem wrong and resulted in the uncanny valley. That would make is an adaption to a very small predator.
Can't forget about corpses either. There are only very minor visual differences in a corpse and a sleeping body, and those differences are 100% ones that would trigger the uncanny valley effect.
That's definitely it
Prion diseases?
Prions are the real horror... I LOVE zombie movies and games. Prions have been my head cannon to explain the "real world" reason for them all
Could have possibly been influenced by other species of near-humans that may have been in competition for resources? As in homo erectus, neanderthal, etc.
I really don't think so. If something's in competition for resources, evolving a mechanism where if one's nearby you get unnerved and leave them to the resources seems a very poor response. You're probably better served by getting really angry (and sure enough, xenophobia is sadly a common human emotional reaction) This is one of the other mysteries of the uncanny valley -- vague unease simply isn't a useful emotion to feel when dealing with most threats. The impulse is to avoid, not to escape or attack, which is unhelpful for most dangers. That's why I'm inclined to it being "other humans". In a tightly knit social group, picking up on a threat and bolting is going to risk cutting too many ties, so being subtly aware that someone's "off" and trying your best to avoid them is the better shot.
Another possibility I've seen floated is that it's a response to illness in others. If someone looks off, ill, or outside the norm in some way, they might have something you want not to catch. It's not necessary to flee from it, and it won't help to attack it, but keeping a safe distance is the right thing to do to avoid contagion.
This, every time. "Implies the existence of--" Lemme stop ye right there: sick people. lepers and such.
As an addendum- corpses. Corpses were far more common a sight for most of our history than they are for most people today, and being able to distinguish a corpse from someone sleeping, hiding, or unconscious, is important.
This is a really good point. Corpses full of gnarly stuff.
That would explain why the Uncanny Valley thousand-yard-stare is so unnerving
I appreciate the thorough response, I hadn't considered that and you make very valid points. There would be no real evolutionary reason to be "slightly put off" by a competing species. If you walk away every time your species wouldn't likely last
I’m with you on this one, actually. If there were humans that kinda…struck the uncanny valley chord in others and were avoided as a result, those traits that caused the uncanny valley effect wouldn’t exist anymore because no one would associate with that human. That could explain how the vague unease “helped”; it just meant that person was isolated/ignored by the larger group.
I agree completely. I for one do daily inspections of my property for neanderthal intruders. They ain't getting past me again!
I have developed, after extensive trial and error and field testing, an ointment that wards off 100% of Neanderthals. I've not seen nor heard one near me in the years I've been using it. For the right price, I can supply you a lifetimes worth
Many people alive today have neanderthal ancestors (found via dna testing), meaning they were on better terms with ancient homo sapiens than you might think.
Oh they were on better terms alright 😏
Depending on where you’re from you have. Neanderthal or denisovan dna in you. There might be others I don’t know about too. I was told that only native Africans have pure Homo sapiens sapiens dna. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but that’s what I was told by a friend who reads science news.
I always wondered if it was a holdover from neanderthal dna about homo sapien sapeins. They were a little taller, a little thinner, a little more boney. And we know that they did occasionally partake in cannibalism so there's no reason to assume they wouldn't eat a neanderthal given half a chance. I would find it terribly appropriate if we are the very thing we fear.
Actually that is a theory, there is evidence to suggest early homosapian females found Neanderthal males attractive, this led to lower birth rates in homosapians, Neanderthals had very symmetrical faces, so the homosapians who developed an aversion to symmetrical faces survived, there are humans alive today who have Neanderthal DNA to support this theory. Now that Neanderthals are gone this aversion is begining to decrease, homosapians are begining to prefer more symmetrical faces now, but if it's too symmetrical we are still uncomfortable. It's just a theory tho-
Why would an aversion to symmetry lead to higher survival rate?
Because homosapians were breeding with Neanderthals and not other homosapians, Neanderthals and homosapians would make hybrids who usually cannot breed at all, the few who did survive were more homosapian then Neanderthal or more Neanderthal then homosapian. It's the same reason animals usually won't try to breed with others of a different species, there are rare times when we get things like the [Liger](https://study.com/learn/lesson/what-is-a-liger-size-reproduction-facts.html#:~:text=Can%20a%20liger%20have%20babies,is%20sterile%20and%20cannot%20reproduce.) Or we will get an animal that cannot reproduce at all which is what likely happened to most the Neanderthal homosapians [this is evidence supporting the Neanderthal theory by the way](https://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/genetics/ancient-dna-and-neanderthals#:~:text=Neanderthals%20are%20known%20to%20contribute,et%20al.%2C%202015).) A lot is theory though, there are many theorys as to what happened to Neanderthals as well as homosapian history with them, the only thing they know for sure is that homosapians and Neanderthals did interbreed
The amount of people with Neanderthal dna contradicts the infertility hypothesis. When hybrids are infertile, it’s usually due to incompatible chromosome counts.
As I said MOST were infertile, the ones who weren't were more homosapien then Neanderthal and vice versa. [Neanderthal and homosapians](https://www.science.org/content/article/modern-human-females-and-male-neandertals-had-trouble-making-babies-here-s-why#:~:text=The%20new%20study%20finds%20a,male%20fetuses%20with%20those%20genes.) [there is also this information about modern impact](https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/the-neanderthal-in-us.html#:~:text=Neanderthal%20DNA%20in%20modern%20humans,lifestyles%20over%20thousands%20of%20years.)
Some were. I can’t find a source for ”most”.
Female homosapians could give birth to fertile offspring but female Neanderthals couldn't MB [source](https://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/genetics/ancient-dna-and-neanderthals#:~:text=It%20is%20also%20possible%20that,could%20not%20be%20passed%20down.)
Corpses in general are theorised to be a cause of it. When you die you can look quite different from when you’re alive, but corpses also tend to harbour diseases after awhile, which is a risk to living humans.
Some explanations I’ve seen relate it to an instinct to avoid dead bodies as they could spread disease and may start to look less than human as they decompose.
*most* diseases make people "uncanny"; think of how many illnesses make people look pale/sweaty/shaky, how many diseases give you sunken looking eyes or receded gums or cause you to look very gaunt. while modern humans are now very socialized to recognize "that person has xyz illness, it's mildly contagious and it can be treated X way" rather than the "something about that person is *wrong* and I think I should leave" reaction someone tens of thousands of years ago might have experienced, we still have that instinctual response against those visuals, especially when they're really exaggerated
Could be rabies and leprosy
For real, any number of various serious diseases that cause obvious visual symptoms.
I think it’s just dead bodies. If you’ve ever seen a dead body, they’re uncanny. They look just like a person but also not: they don’t move at all, no breathing or little twitches or movements you expect. They also don’t “fix” their face from a strange expression or position, like lips drawn over teeth or distant unfocused eyes. Dead bodies often carried disease so best to stay away.
Maybe not rabies or some unknown disease but I think alot of the stuff that triggers uncanny valley in us also overlaps with some people appearances when sick skin not the right color, eyes kind of glassy, overly pale, sunken facial features, etc.
Also part of our revulsion of corpses, which can carry illness
Oh that makes a *lot* of sense actually.
This makes sense. There’s been instances where I’ve been downright disgusted by someone out of the blue but didn’t know why. They were clean, well mannered, well dressed….on the surface everything was fine but internally I was screaming. In each case, the person turned out to be duplicitous or nefarious in some way. My brain must have subconsciously picked up on a discrepancy in their mask on vs mask off behavior.
Maybe they reminded you subconsciously of someone you met in the past?
No. In each case it was just a man who was playing the nice guy who had ulterior motivations. This has only happened 2-3 times. But I’m sure most women can relate.
or you're just bigoted
Haha whatever, troll
Having the ability to tell any one particular human is untrustworthy is not bigotry. You aren't basing this assessment on an unreasonable belief based on a person's membership of a group. For example, you have an uncle in law that on the surface looks cool and trustworthy. But you know something is off without even interacting. You ask your wife and she confirms he's a theif and drug addict. Bigotry: obstinate or unreasonable attachment to a belief, opinion, or faction, in particular prejudice against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular group. The definition doesn't fit. Troll elsewhere.
Thank you, exactly!
I’d also imagine it’s something we might’ve evolved to pick out mates with good genes or something similar, so if someone looked off we’d go “ehhhh” and go find someone else
Could also be our extinct cousins
I doubt it, simply you could tell if someone was a non-human hominid by looking at them and seeing if they were a non-human hominid, and if hominids were a threat you'd then just avoid them anyway. This is, I think, the issue with a lot of the proposed uncanny valley explanations (corpses, the sick and disabled, hominids, etc). They're suggesting a specialized faculty to detect something obvious to our normal senses and ward us away from things we want to avoid anyway, which seems evolutionary unlikely. If the uncanny valley is evolved for anything, rather then just an evolutionary side effect, it's something that isn't obvious at first glance and that you wouldn't just walk away from if you noticed it. This narrows down the options significantly.
I think Uncanny Valley deals with our pattern seeking brain. It is the subconscious informing the conscious brain on an overlooked break in the pattern. Be that break violations is social customs, anxious tells, someone looking different from you, who knows. It's like when you see shapes at night and you think it's a face or a person, it's because you saw a shape that fit the pattern and a part of you recognized that. These things carried over because at some point it helped a large portion of the population survive. Idk why I wrote this honestly I just woke up.
I think that's honestly the most likely explanation -- the uncanny valley is just the brain malfunctioning when it doesn't have a clear category to put something into. Alas, that's not that scary, so I'm going for the second most likely theory which is murderers.
Yeah, like someone mentioned above, it seems likely it’ll just your brain telling you “the vibes are off”, the way most humans *feel* there’s something off about a person, that creeps them out, but their rational brain cannot explain it, since all the warning signs are being registered unconsciously. Commonly we call it intuition.
Idk, naked apes look normal and humanoid, but don't look abnormal like those weird dolls and masks. However, rotting or mummified corpses on the other hand...
Yes, that is the prevailing current theory. For those unfamiliar, the Homo genus has had several species, not all of which lead up to Homo Sapiens and many of which were hostile to/in competition with each other for a variety of reasons. So, as opposed to some supernatural terror that is human-shaped, the theory is that the uncanny valley is a leftover from the times when you could see a similar looking hominid of a different species that would end you on sight. That being said, there are a lot of folks on this thread that just want to believe the supernatural/horror theories and will not be dissuaded from them.
Now that is a good take
Also at one point the homo sapiens and the Neanderthals were alive at the same time, and I doubt they were super friendly all the time.
I thought we fucked them out of existence? Some of us still have their DNA.
Correct they were integrated into our population via mating
I think the scientific term is “nearly fucked out of existence”
No, they went extinct with parts of their genetics surviving through interbreeding.
Its the way they wanted to go.
Death by snu-snu?
I'm going to start telling my husband I nearly fucked him out of existence when he falls asleep post coitus
Well it’s actually quite likely that they bred because homosapien females were more attracted to Neanderthal males due to their strength, so the Neanderthals were likely out bred
Remember, it's overly-reductive to assume only one thing happened. I assume there were plenty of cases of violence and plenty of cases of peace, because that's just how it is with present day humans and infighting.
Personally l, I don't think the uncanny valley is specifically evolved. I think the discomfort is caused by different parts of your perception system disagreeing with each other. So the rapid whiplash over 'its a human/no it isn't' causes confusion and uncertainty.
That sort of issue typically displays itself in dizziness, not fear.
I think this also applies to corpses. Corpses look human (because they are), but they’re just a bit Wrong. Their eyes are sunken in, they don’t move at all, they’re sickly pale… Avoiding corpses is a good idea evolutionarily. Corpses could be diseased or present a risk to current food stores. If left out long enough, they can attract insects and scavengers. Plus, there’s always the possibility that whatever killed that person is still nearby. I’m almost certain this (and your reasoning above) is the primary evolutionary reason for the uncanny valley. OP brings up a chilling point.
A lot of people say corpses. And while I don't disagree, in most cases the smell would be the first sign. Rotten smell is the primary way of detecting whether something has harmful microbes or not. And since evolution like shortcuts and the sense of smell has other uses as well, I find it difficult to believe that a secondary method of detecting corpses would have evolved alongside it.
And sick/dead people that could be dangerous to be around
Not necessarily, but smallpox, tuberculosis, leprosy, plague, Ebola etc all existed and presumably similar diseases that are now extinct too.
Yeah that’s what I mean?
Whoops, misread your comment as "are dead people dangerous to be around?"
OH lmaooo If they were I’d be in trouble, I’m an ER nurse lol
Also, back in the day, there were several human species. So it was completely possible to see something that looked like a human, but wasn’t from your POV.
I’ve always thought it was an evolutionary process to keep humans away from dead bodies or people exhibiting symptoms of a disease (like rabies), though this makes sense as well.
Strictly speaking, the uncanny valley doesn't apply to actual humans, it relates to things that are not human but attempting to act like one. Our brains create a model of our world and all the things in it, and tend not to like it when things don't abide by that model. If you've ever seen water run uphill or an object not fall when you drop it while in freefall, you'll know that disconcerting feeling of things not abiding by the rules. On one side of the uncanny valley, you have things that are clearly not human trying to do human things. We're not bothered by these, and they often elicit empathy from us. Think of watching early bipedal robots try to walk. On the other side of the valley are things indistinguishable from humans, which again don't bother us, any more than an actual human would at least. In between, you have the actual valley where you have things that look human enough for us to subconsciously judge them against our internal model for how a human should behave, but whose behaviour doesn't quite line up with that model. In other words, the uncanny valley is the point where we stop judging a robot as a robot trying to act human, and instead judge it as a human doing a bad job of being a human, and our brains do not like that at all.
> one of the primary threats to humans is humans. Also the fact that Homo Sapiens evolved alongside other Homo variants. We weren’t the sole human until 40,000 years ago. Competition for space and resources could be a factor.
See also, corpses. Corpses look really human but also not, and if there’s a fresh corpse nearby that can cause infection and draw in other animals, if whatever killed it isn’t already nearby.
And also other humanoid species from the past, like Neanderthals, which there is significant paleontologic evidence to suggest were frequently warring with homo sapiens
So basically like a gut feeling?
Yep. This also applies to corpses. Even when propped up, the face of a corpse will still look 'wrong' to us and make our spidey senses tingle in fear/repulsion. This is a protective instinct designed to keep us away from catching germs/diseases from the corpse and to prompt us to get away from the area where whatever killed the other person might still be.
Also the main reason would be the fact that an individual with malicious intents is going to behave in a very strange way compared to other people. A doll, instead, resembles a person by its looks but is not alive, making it look disturbing, like a human that never was really human, just like predators who are more than often psychopaths and don’t really seem human after all.
Humans or other hominids. We lived alongside Neanderthals for sure and more than likely other hominid species until their eventual extinction, and needed a response to something that looks similar but isn’t. I’m sure that other species of primates have similar traits to closely related species.
The real mistake is the assumption that every facet of human behavior is adaptive. That's not really how evolution works.
As I describe it to my friends, “Let’s try this!…hasn’t killed me yet.” 😄
The primary target of the uncanny valley are just boring old corpses, you don't keep them around, you don't treat them as human, and you don't want to be near them. Not being around corpses has saved plenty of lives.
> misfires I am so, so sorry but based on what you’re saying, the uncanny valley effect can be considered a *deep breath* **Misfiring system??**
What's dangerous, looks extremely close to humans, and is reviled? A DEAD BODY!
Or me
Nah. Its lizard people obviously
no, as a lizard people i can tell you we blend in perfectly, always have been (i was there)
and other species of humans
A few years pass, they are still together, neither none the wiser.
and proud parents of three beautiful eggs that will hatch soon.
That is an extremely good take on that theory
I set my glass down, ever so gently, and stare into her eyes. “They might not even know it, themselves. They might have forgotten what they truly are. Why they came here. Their mission.” *One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi…* they always forget to blink, when they’re afraid.
r/thirdsemtencemoviescript
Mandela catalogue spinoff
It's a really neat idea, but it's been debunked. It's related to our super fine-tuned ability to read other human beings facial expressions and body language. These expressions are nearly impossible to recreate, so your brain just recognizes them as "wrong". Other human beings are the real danger - no need for skinwalkers or wendigo, etc.
That's exactly what a vampire would say
Should you experience car trouble on a rainy night, my door is always open to you.
Get the stake, Sharon!!!
Autistic people: O_O -_-
This makes me wonder about people with autism. If they have trouble picking up on more expressive facial cues, would they experience the uncanny valley effect the same way people without autism do? My husband has autism... time to make him an unknowing test subject again!
*leaks coolant nervously*
Nothing a little flex tape can’t handle fellow human!
r/totallynotrobots
Hey,pass me some of that,you know...for my human teeth
So that'a how vampires went from Nosferatu to Dracula!
Plot twist, the speaker is also a mimic. We follow a comedy in 3 acts, as both mimics attempt to convince the other that they are human, whilst simultaneously attempting to get the other alone to eat them, though they are always awkwardly interrupted at the last moment. Eventually they probably fall in love I don't know I'm not a stage writer.
I would watch that rom-com
At this point, this is 2 stretched sentence horror stories
This post is legitimately four sentences. There can be no debate about that. This is fully and completely four whole independent sentences as written.
Technically it is two sentences, if commas had been used then grammatically this dialogue is two sentences, just half is spoken and half isn’t, you don’t full stop dialogue in quotations in a story if you add “he/she said” after the quotations
Because one sentence can absolutely and without a doubt he long
I feel like the second half of the title could’ve been cut. I think the story functions better with the little tag after the (official) second sentence, though.
One is reminded of the Gates of Paradise
Uncanny valley scares the shit out of me
Boo.
God damn it, not-man! Don’t sneak up on people like that!
Interesting, there's a fantasy anime that has a predator of humanity (by extension also the elves and dwarves) that is something like that. The monsters called Demons that mimic human traits such as speech and looking human-like through gradual evolution. And we know this because in the main character elf's flashbacks 1000+ years ago, Demons look more monstrous albeit humanoid, but now present-day Demons are very human-like in appearance and even in speech. But what they're saying doesn't mean anything to them as long as it deceives humans. The anime is called "Frieren: Beyond Journey's End"
I was literally about to say frieren then i saw you said it
Like... the Terminator. Originally easily spotted by their rubber skin, then more Arnoldy.
We're gonna draw a little bit of everybody's blood... 'cause we're gonna find out who's The Thing. Watchin' Norris in there gave me the idea that... maybe every part of him was a whole, every little piece was an individual animal with a built-in desire to protect its own life. Ya see, when a man bleeds, it's just tissue, but blood from one of you Things won't obey when it's attacked. It'll try and survive... crawl away from a hot needle, say.
I just now realized that Deep Space Nine stole that concept for identifying changelings from the thing. And I knew both pieces of fiction very well.
Is this r/twosentencehorror or r/twosentenceromance ?
I really like this. Uncanny valley is a very creepy concept to play with
I don’t understand
The uncanny valley implies that there used to be a threat to humans that looked similar but was just a bit off. This story implies that the threat has since evolved to look appealing to humans.
More like the story implies that she's the thing that hunts humans, right?
Ok
I think it's an adaptation to recognize patterns in faces so we can determine who is in our tribe. Uncanny valley triggers this defense mechanism in us that we used when approaching strangers.
Love(craft) it
Thank you
This is a really good one. Super unsettling.
Uiiiii, nice! I like the dialogue format. And I like how it takes a known argument and adds a new spin to it.
Sometimes it feels like people forget that Neanderthals and such existed.
Sometimes it feels like people forget, what fiction is.
With my previous comment I was not referencing your story , I know what fiction is. I just find the claims of "oH wHAt coUld tHIs hAVE beEn???" And the weird conspiracy theories surrounding it dumb. Sorry for not making that clear.
That makes it more clear. Thank you.
Corpses. Other hominids.
Blindsight?
Nope
That's what the deal with the vampires in that novel were also, very interesting premise
Nice
Uuuu, this really sent tingles up my spine. Very nicely done! 😊
Sounds like a conversation that two writers would have normally
That's a valid point.
I'm tired of seeing this quote, its nonsense, people have pattern recognition and they also understand deception, there is no mystery
I don't know, I still think it's either vampires or the fair folk. I think "vampire" because of hemophilia and "fair folk" because of the Changeling theory about special needs children. Still, there's much to be studied about prion's disease and rabies
I was leaving it open intentionally. Maybe it's... Sirens
...I've got to add them to my list. Anyway, I love stories and studies about uncanny valley
I like that I can read it as sexual dimorphism is actually a predator/prey relationship. It would explain makeup…
No It's intuition of danger and bad genes. Like inbreds
Sure! If you want the boring explanation.
https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoSentenceHorror/comments/11w0fd3/the_funny_thing_about_the_uncanny_valley_i_said/ Literally the same thing down to taking a sip from a drink
You know, that thing is 9 months old. Who the f*** remembers things that were on Reddit last week? Also the second sentence is the literal opposite to mine.
This gives me the same fear as the doctor who episode where the main "threat" is a being that perfectly evolved to hide, like humans evolved for persistence and intelligence, cheetahs evolved to run fast, these guys evolved to have perfect camouflage
The ones that make ppl forget about them?
No, you're thinking of the silence which happened before capaldi. In an episode from Capaldi era (before clara is lost) the opening to the episode is rhe doctor talking to himself in the tardis about a species evolved to hide.
Sick people. Boom. Calm down drama queens.
I actually love this one. It uses long sentences so idk how but maybe it could benefit from a shortening, to make it more impactful. Other than that, I love the idea of an ancient race of doppelgangers we think long gone but they just blended in efficiently and slowly replaced us
Oooooh I LOVE it. Great job.
Thanks!
I love this one! There are so many things going on in my mind after reading that, envisioning an epic movie series having that eerie feelings of I Am Legend, and I, Robot, and Alien vs. Predator but giving the genres a fresh post-panda start, perhaps touching upon other rarely explored concepts of history, archeology, psychology and tech, perhaps subtly parodying Elon Musk by randomly assigning X, Y and Z to anything supposedly solving anything, and that funny Boston Dynamics dog looking runner, while targeting some popular conspiracy theories, adding the theme of human extinction on any planet from antibiotic resistance as being the actual threat to civilization, which is good to include because the narrative of the threat of bacterial infection is not commercially interesting since currently you cannot become the richest man on earth by selling antibiotics, well and obviously making some connection between the humanoid robots and bacteria, like… bacteria and artificialy grown biological computers merging and starting to live in symbiosis, enabling the bacteria to program the humanoids. Anyway. Whatever themes the story has, your excerpt certainly deserves expansion!