Decoding the Uncanny Valley: Tracking Gaze Patterns in the Face of the Unsettling

The uncanny valley phenomenon, which explains the discomfort people feel when encountering objects that seem almost human, has become more relevant with the increasing exposure to realistic 3D objects. This increase highlights the necessity to understand human perceptions when interacting with human-like characters. An experimental study was conducted using an eye tracker to explore this phenomenon through qualitative and quantitative data collection in two rounds. The first round (exposure) examined participants’ eye-gaze behavior when viewing 14 images of either a male or female portrait. The second round (assessment) explored their perception of the same images. The results showed that the comfort level of the participants decreased simultaneously with the decrease of the humanness present in the portraits, but the phenomenon did not occur. There was a difference in pupil dilation and eye fixation based on the image's gender. Participants mostly focused on the eyes and nose when assessing the humanness of an image, suggesting that irregularities or distortions in these facial features may contribute to the phenomenon.