TY - JOUR
T1 - The clone devaluation effect
T2 - A new uncanny phenomenon concerning facial identity
AU - Yonemitsu, Fumiya
AU - Sasaki, Kyoshiro
AU - Gobara, Akihiko
AU - Yamada, Yuki
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science KAKENHI Grant Numbers JP16H03079
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Yonemitsu et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.
PY - 2021/7
Y1 - 2021/7
N2 - Technological advances in robotics have already produced robots that are indistinguishable from human beings. This technology is overcoming the uncanny valley, which refers to the unpleasant feelings that arise from humanoid robots that are similar in appearance to real humans to some extent. If humanoid robots with the same appearance are mass-produced and become commonplace, we may encounter circumstances in which people or humanlike products have faces with the exact same appearance in the future. This leads to the following question: what impressions do clones elicit? To respond to this question, we examined what impressions images of people with the same face (clone images) induce. In the six studies we conducted, we consistently reported that clone images elicited higher eeriness than individuals with different faces; we named this new phenomenon the clone devaluation effect. We found that the clone devaluation effect reflected the perceived improbability of facial duplication. Moreover, this phenomenon was related to distinguishableness of each face, the duplication of identity, the background scene in observing clone faces, and avoidance reactions based on disgust sensitivity. These findings suggest that the clone devaluation effect is a product of multiple processes related to memory, emotion, and face recognition systems.
AB - Technological advances in robotics have already produced robots that are indistinguishable from human beings. This technology is overcoming the uncanny valley, which refers to the unpleasant feelings that arise from humanoid robots that are similar in appearance to real humans to some extent. If humanoid robots with the same appearance are mass-produced and become commonplace, we may encounter circumstances in which people or humanlike products have faces with the exact same appearance in the future. This leads to the following question: what impressions do clones elicit? To respond to this question, we examined what impressions images of people with the same face (clone images) induce. In the six studies we conducted, we consistently reported that clone images elicited higher eeriness than individuals with different faces; we named this new phenomenon the clone devaluation effect. We found that the clone devaluation effect reflected the perceived improbability of facial duplication. Moreover, this phenomenon was related to distinguishableness of each face, the duplication of identity, the background scene in observing clone faces, and avoidance reactions based on disgust sensitivity. These findings suggest that the clone devaluation effect is a product of multiple processes related to memory, emotion, and face recognition systems.
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U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0254396
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0254396
M3 - Article
C2 - 34255794
AN - SCOPUS:85110258936
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 16
JO - PloS one
JF - PloS one
IS - 7 July
M1 - e0254396
ER -