ArticleHeliyon2018
Evaluating the replicability of the uncanny valley effect.
Article in Heliyon, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Automated capture and transfer of human facial expressions to humanoid robots for realistic patient simulation.Frontiers in robotics and AI · 2026Article
- Moral Uncanny Valley revisited - how human expectations of robot morality based on robot appearance moderate the perceived morality of robot decisions in high conflict moral dilemmas.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Article
- Creepy cats and strange high houses: Support for configural processing in testing predictions of nine uncanny valley theories.Journal of vision · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The uncanny valley (UV) effect refers to an eerie feeling of unfamiliarity people get while observing or interacting with robots that resemble humans almost but not quite perfectly. The effect is not well understood, and it is also unclear how well results from previous research on the UV can be replicated. In six studies, both in the laboratory and online (N = 1343), we attempted to replicate the UV effect with various stimuli used in previous research. In Studies 1 and 2 we failed to replicate the UV effect with CGI stimuli created using the so-called morphing technique (a robot image morphed into a human image, resulting in a supposedly creepy robot-human image). In Studies 3a and 3b we found a prominent UV effect using pre-evaluated, non-morphed and photorealistic robot pictures. Finally, in exploratory Studies 4a and 4b we found the UV effect using morphed and photorealistic human and robot pictures. Our results suggest that the UV effect is more robust when elicited by pre-validated or
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.