Oh God what is THAT?

And here it is, the final blog post. This week we discussed Realism and Reality, and what those terms mean to us. Even though we've not yet officially discussed the Uncanny Valley, I'd still like to delve into it a little bit, as I find it quite interesting. The Uncanny Valley is, of course, the hypothesis that claims that when a human replica acts almost as a real human does, but not quite, it causes feelings of revulsion. To this day we've not yet captured a human face precisely right without getting these feelings of revulsion, although perhaps we are getting close.

Why we have this reaction is most likely because we spend most of our lives identifying faces, it comes as second nature. It is also why people keep finding faces of Jesus Christ in slices of toast and such. I believe it's also important for us to be able to tell that a person is ill or even deceased, for our own safety. As we spend so much time looking at exactly how a face moves and where the skin folds, it's really not surprising that we are able to pick up on such tiny disrepancies. Not surprising, but nevertheless impressive.

This brings me on to the next topic which I found interesting: Suspension of disbelief. This refers to a willingness to suspend common sense temporarily to truly believe in an illusion such as the ones found in fiction. For as long as it lasts you stop to be critical and are content to believe what's happening is true, or at least to put your disbelief aside for the moment.

This can actually be linked to the uncanny valley. People will complain that Jeff Bridges' face in Tron didn't look quite right, but you don't hear anyone complain that the entire premise of the film is nonsense! After all, light cycles. Need I say more?