I am looking for some help here, and I'm not totally sure how to go about it... I am hoping someone here will know what I am talking about and can point me in the right direction.
I believe there was a study done sometime in the last ten years (may have been longer) where it was determined that humans respond positively toward things which have indications of a human face, things as basic as "smiley faces" or coloured lights forming smiles, etc. However, the flip side of this study was that there was a line... crossing this line and making things look "too human" tended to creep people out. Think marionettes, robotic presidents at Disney World, etc...
Here's the thing, I was positive that I had read about this study in a column by Roger Ebert of all people, I could have sworn he sited this study in his review for the Wayan's Brothers movie 'White Chicks', but having just re-read that review I can find absolutely no reference to it, as if I dreamed it. I really hope this is not the case.
Does this study sound familiar to anyone here?
search 'uncanny valley'
There's also this
http://discovermagazine.com/2011/jan-feb/19-brain-seeing-person-behind-the-face
two percent have prosopagnosia?!
that would imply that you see one of these people every time you are in a crowd...
my dubiosity is engorged.
also. i read it as proSPAGnosia. which i would assume means the innability to recognize half the spags on the board because they change their goddamn name and avatar every gundamned week....
i suffer that.
:lulz: @ Iptuous
Yeah, uncanny valley. Big problem for video games.
Apparently Oliver Sacks, who write books on his more interesting clinical psychology cases, has prosopagnosia.