From Freud to Android: Constructing a Scale of Uncanny Feelings

Abstract

The uncanny valley is a topic for engineers, animators, and psychologists, yet uncanny emotions are without a clear definition. Across three studies, we developed an 8-item measure of unnerved feelings, finding that it was discriminable from other affective experiences. In Study 1, we conducted an exploratory factor analysis that yielded two factors; an unnerved factor, which connects to emotional reactions to the uncanny, and a disoriented factor, which connects to mental state changes more distally following uncanny experiences. Focusing on the unnerved measure, Study 2 tests the scale’s convergent and discriminant validity, concluding that participants who watched an uncanny video were more unnerved than those who watched a disgusting, fearful, or a neutral video. In Study 3, we determined that our scale detects unnerved feelings created during early 2020 by the coronavirus pandemic; a distinct source of uncanniness. These studies contribute to the psychological and interdisciplinary understanding of this strange, eerie phenomenon of being confronted with what looms just beyond our understanding.

Open Scholarship

This article has earned the Center for Open Science badges for Open Data, Open Materials and Preregistered through Open Practices Disclosure. The data and materials are openly accessible at https://osf.io/b4v9y/, https://osf.io/kc79v/, and https://osf.io/gckas/. The SOM study is available at https://osf.io/wahfe/. To obtain the author's disclosure form, please contact the Editor.

Notes

1 We present pre-registered analyses using this two-item measure in the SOM Section 2.

2 As in Study 2, we pre-registered the two-factor scale, with unnerved and disoriented facets. In the SOM, we report model fit for this scale as well.