Uncanny Phenomenon Research Articles

Merasa Asing dan Salah Tempat: Fenomena Uncanny dalam Novel Rubber Karya Madelon Syekely Lulofs

Life on plantations in the first half of the 20th century, which was autonomous, gave a great freedom to the planters. They worked on the plantations almost without any interferences from the colonial government in Batavia. Everything related to the plantation companies was the initiative and policy of the planters themselves. However, the difference between reality and what they dreamed of before when they were still in the Netherlands eventually led to various uncanny phenomena such as feeling alienated, odd, and displaced. This paper aimed to reveal these various phenomena in Rubber's novel by using Homi K. Bhabha's postcolonialism theory which drew inspiration from Freud's psychoanalytic theory of unheimlich. The method used was the close reading method with the poststructuralism assumption that the text did not convey what appeared to be said at first, what will be said, or what is expected to be said. For this reason, reading was carried out carefully and repeatedly on lingual units in the form of text or fragments in Rubber in order that every sign, ideas and statements had meanings.

Uncanny Phenomenon: Existential Experiences Among Iranian International Students

Cross-cultural transitions can evoke reflections about existential concerns. Yet, the literature on international students’ adjustment has neglected this important aspect. To explore existential concerns that may arise during acculturation, we conducted semistructured interviews with six Iranian international graduate students studying in Canada. Using interpretative phenomenological analysis, we identified three overarching themes: (a) Migration as a Boundary Situation, (b) Facing Existential Concerns, and (c) Coping with Existential Concerns. Results highlighted a connection between feelings of not-being-at-home or uncanniness in an unfamiliar host culture and existential reflections. Results also revealed that existential inquiries may be masquerading as adjustment problems. Overall, the findings challenge pathologizing views of cross-cultural adjustment difficulties and highlight the lack of attention to geopolitical factors affecting international students’ experiences. We call for practitioners to consider the possible presence of existential concerns during acculturation, and the sociopolitical contexts into which international students acculturate.

The clone devaluation effect: A new uncanny phenomenon concerning facial identity.

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 human-like 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.

Upper- and lower-limb amputees show reduced levels of eeriness for images of prosthetic hands

The “uncanny phenomenon” describes the feeling of unease associated with seeing an image that is close to appearing human. Prosthetic hands in particular are well known to induce this effect. Little is known, however, about this phenomenon from the viewpoint of prosthesis users. We studied perceptions of eeriness and human-likeness for images of different types of mechanical, cosmetic, and anatomic hands in upper-limb prosthesis users (n=9), lower-limb prosthesis users (n=10), prosthetists (n=16), control participants with no prosthetic training (n=20), and control participants who were trained to use a myoelectric prosthetic hand simulator (n=23). Both the upper- and lower-limb prosthesis user groups showed a reduced uncanny phenomenon (i.e., significantly lower levels of eeriness) for cosmetic prosthetic hands compared to the other groups, with no concomitant reduction in how these stimuli were rated in terms of human-likeness. However, a similar effect was found neither for prosthetists with prolonged visual experience of prosthetic hands nor for the group with short-term training with the simulator. These findings in the prosthesis users therefore seem likely to be related to limb absence or prolonged experience with prostheses.

VAMPIRE VERSUS THE EMPIRE: BRAM STOKER'S REPROACH OFFIN-DE-SIÈCLEBRITAIN INDRACULA

Much has been said aboutBram Stoker'sDracula(1897), the out-of-tradition exemplar of the Gothic which, perhaps, has had a more pervasive effect on our understanding of life and death, gender roles and identity, and sex and perversity than any other work of the genre. The vampire from the so-called dark ages has become a symbol standing for the uncontrollable powers acting on us and also for all the discarded, uncanny phenomena in human nature and history. The work, however, has usually been taken by the critics of Gothic literature as “a paradigmatic Gothic text” (Brewster 488) representing the social, psychological, and sexual traumas of the late-nineteenth century. Hence, it has been analysed as a work “breaking [the] taboos, [and in need of being] read as an expression of specifically late Victorian concerns” (Punter and Byron 231). The text has also been seen as “reinforc[ing] readers’ suspicions that the authorities (including people, institutions and disciplines) they trust are ineffectual” (Senf 76). Yet, it has hardly ever been taken as offering an alternativeWeltanschauungin place of the decaying Victorian ethos. True,Draculais afin-de-sièclenovel and deals with the turbulent paradigmatic shift from the Victorian to the modern, and Stoker, by creating the lecherous vampire and his band as thedoppelgängersof the sexually sterile and morally pretentious bourgeois types (who are, in fact, inclined to lascivious joys), reveals the moral hypocrisy and sexual duplicity of his time. But, it is also true that by juxtaposing the “abnormal” against the “normal” he targets the utilitarian bourgeois ethics of the empire: aware of the Victorian pragmatism on which the concept of the “normal” has been erected, he, with an “abnormal” historical figure (Vlad Drăculea of the House of Drăculești, 1431–76) who appears as Count Dracula in the work, attacks the ethical superstructure of Britain which has already imposed on the Victorians the “pathology of normalcy” (Fromm 356). Hence, Stoker's choice of title character, the sadistic Vlad the Impaler, who fought against the Ottoman Empire in the closing years of the Middle Ages, and his anachronistic rendering of Dracula as a Gothic invader of the Early Middle Ages are not coincidental (Figure 8). In the world of the novel, this embodiment of the early and late paradigms is the antagonistic power arrayed against the supposedly stable, but in reality fluctuating,fin-de-siècleethos. However, by turning this personification of the “evil” past into a sexual enigma for the band of men who are trying to preserve the Victorian patriarchal hegemony, Stoker suggests that if Victorian sterile faith in the “normal” is defeated through a historically extrinsic (in fact, currently intrinsic) anomaly, a more comprehensive social and ethical epoch that has made peace with the past can be started.

Thomas Hardy Reception and Reputaion in China

Thomas Hardy has been one of the best-loved novelists to Chinese readers for nearly a century, which is an uncanny phenomenon in the circle of literature reception and circulation in China. It seems that Hardy has some magic power to have kept attracting Chinese literature lovers with his keen insight into nature, profound reflection on humanity and whole-hearted concern about human fate in the vast universe. Hardy’s works saturated with nostalgic sentiments for the traditional way of rural life exert unusual resonance in Chinese readers in terms of receptional aesthetic. There is no denial that Hardy is rather loved and admired by generation upon generation of Chinese literates, which can find expression in his exceeding popularity among readers from all trades and walks, from all levels, which ranges from middle school students to professors. In China, his prestige ranks only after Shakespeare among English persons of letters.

Human Perception of Animacy in Light of the Uncanny Valley Phenomenon.

The uncanny valley hypothesis by Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori posits a nonlinear relation between human replicas' human likeness and the emotional responses they elicit. In three studies, we corroborated the uncanny valley hypothesis, using the uncanny phenomenon as a vehicle to shed a new light on human animacy perception. In Study 1, 62 participants rated emotional responses and human likeness of 89 artificial and human faces. In Study 2, another 62 participants conducted a visual looming task with the same 89 faces allowing for the measurement of perceived threat. Results support the uncanny valley hypothesis, suggesting that the uncanny feeling may serve a function to wary humans of the potential danger of entities crossing the animate-inanimate boundary. In Study 3, 36 participants sorted faces as either real or unreal as quickly as possible in a reaction time sorting task allowing for the measurement of categorical uncertainty associated with animacy perception. Faces associated with longer sorting reaction times were also those associated with the highest ratings of negative emotions, suggesting that categorical uncertainty in animacy detection is related to the uncanny feeling. Results are discussed in light of human animacy perception and new directions for future research are suggested.

“Presence” and “Absence”: Kaleidoscopic Hide and Seek: Reply to Commentaries

In this reply I respond to Cambray’s introduction of the “self-organizing” and “emergent” qualities of telepathic communication, looking more closely at the relationship between dissociation and the emergence of telepathic phenomena. I highlight the creative aspect of such telepathic “intrusions,” viewing the clinician’s capacity for intuitive imagination as key to the emergence of telepathic material. In response to Eshel’s connection between the analyst’s “presence,” “absence,” and the patient’s unmet need for recognition, I examine the roles of co-construction and mutual dissociation in transference-countertransference enactments that generate uncanny phenomena. Verbal interpretation not always being the most viable mode of communication, “absence” can sometimes serve as a co-constructed, unconscious “solution” to the problem of multiple conflicting needs, holding a space for telepathic emergence to express the inexpressable.

Response to Janine de Peyer’s “Uncanny Communication and the Porous Mind”

Janine de Peyer has done pioneering work in (re)opening the exploration of uncanny phenomena within the context of the psychoanalytic encounter. In this response her achievement is celebrated and placed against the backdrop of recent advances in Jungian or Analytical Psychology. In particular the application of complexity theory to synchronistic phenomena is suggested as a valuable means of assess these experiences. The use of field theory to help capture the distributed, nonlocal aspect of the interactive field active in such material is traced back to 19th-century physics and William James’s introduction of this concept into psychology. In an attempt to take another step forward, an ecological approach to these phenomena is suggested.

The Uncanny Valley: Existence and Explanations

More than 40 years ago, Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori (1970/2005) proposed the “uncanny valley” hypothesis, which predicted a nonlinear relation between robots’ perceived human likeness and their likability. Although some studies have corroborated this hypothesis and proposed explanations for its existence, the evidence on both fronts has been mixed and open to debate. We first review the literature to ascertain whether the uncanny valley exists. We then try to explain the uncanny phenomenon by reviewing hypotheses derived from diverse theoretical and methodological perspectives within psychology and allied fields, including evolutionary, social, cognitive, and psychodynamic approaches. Next, we provide an evaluation and critique of these studies by focusing on their methodological limitations, leading us to question the accepted definition of the uncanny valley. We examine the definitions of human likeness and likability, and propose a statistical test to preliminarily quantify their nonlinear relation. We argue that the uncanny valley hypothesis is ultimately an engineering problem that bears on the possibility of building androids that may some day become indistinguishable from humans. In closing, we propose a dehumanization hypothesis to explain the uncanny phenomenon.

Intersecting Homeliness: Vietnamese Australian Reflections of a Suburban Home (Strathfield, NSW)

In year 2013, I lived in Vietnam. Once a year, the Vietnamese people have a particular tradition called khom đất, where the people set out a guest table filled with delicious feast of food and paper clothing, shoes, accessories and money for the spirits of the house. Khom in khom đất means a set of rituals or prayer to bow down and pay respect. Đất means land. It is a ritual which acknowledges the spirits within the home and the agency these spirits have to the home. There would be separate rituals for different types of spirits and incense would burn as an offering to various places. For example, an incense and food offering would be on an alter directly above the fire stove in the kitchen to be grateful to the fire spirit of the home. There is a belief that if the fire spirit gets angry, the spirit may be a danger to the family. The spirit has the agency and a power over the home. It is a ritual to recognise that a home has its ghosts, its history and its spirits that reside long before the current people residents and that they have the power to protect or destroy. Mostly, it is to recognaise that land and place is not to be owned, and matters such as fire or water or wood is not mere commodities. Rather, these materialities are living and only would be at our disposal to help us when they given the respect and recognition that they are living and are powerful agents.Within the Vietnamese language, there is no specific word for differentiate ‘home’ and ‘house’ but rather, use the word ‘house’ to mean both the building and the home – nhà (Rather then state, ‘I go home’ one states literally, ‘I return to the house’ – Tôi về nhà). To state house rather than home could mean that home is not to be possessed but rather, has it’s own agency, vitality and spirit.With this in mind, I will tell you about a particular uncanny phenomenon that has happened in my family home in Strathfield (a loved family home where my family still resides in) that has happened 10 years ago and has not escaped the memories of any of us. I hope to capture, in a self-reflexive way, the merging of the past and the present within the Vietnamese migrant experience living in the Australian landscape, with its dark history of the forced displacement of Indigenous peoples. I wish to mourn and acknowledge that the land that has given my refugee family opportunity to begin life safely and freely, and my birthplace is a stolen land. And that we are always both grateful and in mourning with our homeland.

The Gaze as constituent and annihilator

This article aims to join the contemporary effort to promote a psychoanalytic renaissance within cinema studies, post Post-Theory. In trying to shake off the burden of the 1970s film theory's distortion of the Lacanian Gaze, rejuvenating it with the strength of the Real and fusing it with Freudian thoughts on the uncanny, hopefully this new dawn can be reached. I aspire to conceptualize the Gaze in a straightforward manner. This in order to obtain an instrument for the identification of certain strategies within the filmic realm aimed at depicting the subjective destabilizing of diegetic characters as well as thwarting techniques directed at the spectorial subject. In setting this capricious Gaze against the uncanny phenomena described by Freud, we find that these two ideas easily intertwine into a draft description of a powerful, potentially reconstitutive force worth being highlighted.Mats Carlsson, Scholar at the Department of Media Studies, Cinema Studies, at Stockholm University. His academic interests revolve around (post-modern) critical theory, with the goal of applying theoretical strategies, such as psychoanalysis, as a limelight on the ideological implications inherent in today's media-saturated society.

Homo pavlovius: Cinema, Conditioning, and the Cold War Subject

Edward Hunter, the man popularly credited with coining the term brainwashing , had a deep appreciation of the power of his new construct. In his book on this new form of mind control, first published in 1951 and then expanded on in 1956, he referred often to the “eerie sensation” this term inspired in him. 1 Many Americans shared this sensation in the first decade of the Cold War. The fear and fascination surrounding the term brainwashing presumably stemmed from the conviction that in this uncanny phenomenon the totalitarian enemy revealed its true face. If a name was needed to accompany that face, Hunter supplied that as well. The ultimate source of the “eerie sensation” emanating from behind the Iron Curtain was identified by Hunter as Ivan Pavlov, the Nobel Prize‐winning scientist and inventor of the methods the Soviets and their allies were allegedly employing on American prisoners of war (POWs) in Korea, on prominent dissidents in Eastern bloc coun tries, and on a mass scale on their own citizens. Hunter saw evidence of a deep connection between the POW camps and Pavlov’s experiments on reflex condition ing, and he furthermore claimed that the “Chinese, as a race, are undergoing mind treatment inside a Great Pavlovian Wall.” 2 From the start the problems both with Hunter’s account of brainwashing and with his picture of Pavlov as the mastermind behind it were readily apparent. Not the least of these was that Pavlov had never been a Bolshevik, and his most impor tant research had been carried out before the Bolsheviks came to power. The exact nature of the relation between Pavlovian conditioning and brainwashing was also problematic, as was, some skeptics suggested, the entire concept of brainwashing. Despite such skepticism, Hunter’s construct proved remarkably resilient—attesting not just to the skill with which the journalist and intelligence operative had woven his account but also to the degree to which it tapped into deep undercurrents of anxiety in the contemporary public. Joost Meerloo, a Dutch psychiatrist who taught

관객의 생체신호 분석을 통한 감성 변화

영상을 주의 깊게 시청하는 관객은 보이는 영상의 성격에 따라 여러 심적 변화를 경험한다. 기쁨, 슬픔, 놀람 등 관객이 느낄 수 있는 다양한 감정 상태는 심리학에서 많이 활용되는 제임스 러셀(James Russell)이 정의한 감정 원형모형을 통해 정리된다. 관객이 느낄 수 있는 감정들 중에서도 특히 지그문트 프로이트(Sigmund Freud)가 언급한 언캐니(uncanny)는 기존의 명료한 정서적 개념들의 틈새에 존재하는 첨예한 중간자로 대변된다. 언캐니 현상은 비윤리적으로 인식되는 영상을 시청하는 관객이 보편적으로 느끼는 불쾌한 부분이 쾌로 수용되는 상태, 즉 사회적 금기에 대해 긍정적인 상태이기 때문에 이는 사회윤리적인 해석과 더불어 명확한 수리적 분석이 후행될 때 비로소 첨예한 심리상태로서 분석 가치를 지닌다. 따라서 본 논문에서는 감정 원형모형과 언캐니 상태를 분석하고, 관객의 언캐니 상태에 관한 가설을 설립하여 ECG(Electronic Cardiogram)와 GSR(Galvanic Skin Response) 신호 측청과 같은 생체신호 실험을 수치화한 결과를 러셀의 감정 원형모형을 기반으로 분포, 거리, 시간 등을 분석하는 방향으로 진행된다. Audience observing visual media with care experience lots of emotional transition according to characteristics of media. Enjoy, sadness, surprising, etc, a variety of emotional state of audiences is often arranged by James Russell's 'A circumplex model of affect' utilized on psychology. Especially, in various emotions, 'Uncanny' mentioned by Sigmund Freud is represented a sharp medium existing in a crack of clearly emotional conception. Uncanny phenomenon is an emotional state of changing from unpleasant to pleasant on an audience observing visual media is been aware of immoral media generally, therefore, because this is a positive state on a social taboo, we need to analyze with a scientific analysis clearly. Therefore, this study will organize James Russell's 'A circumplex model of affect' and uncanny phenomenon, will be progressed to establish a hypothesis about a state of uncanny on audiences observing visual media and analyze results of the physiological signals experiment based on ECG(Electronic Cardiogram), GSR(Galvanic Skin Response) signals with distribution, distance, and moving time in a circumplex model of affect.

Uncanny behaviour in survival horror games

This study investigates the relationship between the perceived strangeness of a virtual character and the perception of human likeness for some attributes of motion and sound. Participants (N=100) were asked to rate thirteen video clips of twelve different virtual characters and one human. The results indicate that attributes of motion and sound do exaggerate the uncanny phenomenon and how frightening that character is perceived to be. Strong correlations were identified for the perceived strangeness of a character with how human-like a character's voice sounded, how human-like the facial expression appeared and how synchronized the character's sound was with lip movement; characters rated as the least synchronized were perceived to be the most frightening. Based on the results of this study, this article seeks to define an initial set of hypotheses for the fear-evoking aspects of character facial rendering and vocalization in survival horror games that can be used by game designers seeking to increase the fear factor in the genre, and that will form the basis of further experiments, which, it is hoped, will lead to a conceptual framework for the uncanny.

Murakami Haruki and the historical memory of East Asia

In this article, I would like to focus on an analysis of internal logic of the ‘Haruki phenomenon’ as a symptom in current East Asian public culture. In particular, I will discuss how Haruki searches for the healing method for the ‘60s complex’ among Japan’s ‘Sixties’ Kids,’ including Haruki himself, through an analysis of his novels Norwegian Wood (2000[1987]) and Kafka on the Shore (2005[2002]). In the process of analysis, we can witness that Haruki abandoned his task of ‘reconciliation with the 1960s’ through faith, rather than facing it directly, and fiznally stripped the 1960s of historicity and reality. He regarded the ‘reconciliation with the 1960s’ as something beyond an individual’s ability. Transforming the 1960s from a history of postwar Japan into an object of abstract and universal nostalgia, which is closed to the present, Haruki effectively met the latent desire of the East Asian people, who were experiencing the dissolution of their ideologies, at the right time. This is the essence of the Haruki phenomenon that emerged in East Asia over the last decade. I use the phrase ‘nostalgia that lost its nationality’ to describe the uncanny cultural phenomenon of East Asian readers longing for the 1960s pictured in Haruki’s novels as if this were their own past, despite their very different national memories. Nostalgia, a cultural symptom of the postmodern society, where remembering the nation’s past totally is impossible, is a blank imitation deprived of its original source. In short, the substance of the Haruki phenomenon is nostalgia that developed from a desire to forget the traumatic memories of the national histories in individual East Asian countries.

Enacting Airports: Space, Movement and Modes of Ordering

In the era of an increasingly `light' and `liquid' modernity (Bauman, 2000) airports appear to be privileged and distinctive sites of organization, constitutive of what Castells calls a `space of flows' that is helping to extend and integrate the so-called `network age' of global economy and `glocal' culture. This paper draws on original empirical research at Fulchester International Airport and studies the movement of various subjects and objects (including passengers, bags and aeroplanes) as they are assembled and disassembled by `modes of ordering' to facilitate the flows of exchange and interaction that for Castells binds the physically disjointed positions of social actors in contemporary global organization. Our study explores the ways in which digital information and communications technology creates `spectral' and uncanny phenomena that feeds back into the here-and-now of mundane, organizational reality. We find that an emergent hybridity between the dimensions of the virtual and the real opens up an intensive space that seems to extend the becoming of a `post-human' ontology; but in so doing it also provokes the return of a recalcitrant and unpredictable mass.

Hexatonic Poles and the Uncanny in Parsifal

Example 1, reproduced from a 1930 harmony treatise of Sigfrid Karg-Elert, depicts a hexatonic pole, a progression (in either direction) between a major and a minor triad that features semitonal motion in each of the three upper voices.1 In a previous article, I demonstrated that hexatonic poles are frequently called upon by composers to depict uncanny phenomena, and suggested that this association follows from a homology between features of the progression and of the uncanny as it was understood by early twentieth-century psychology.2 The examples used in that article were brief, and drawn from a broad array of music, including several from Parsifal. As Karg-Elert's annotation of Example 1 suggests, those examples were merely the toe protruding from the sheets of the music drama. This paper demonstrates that Parsifal's abundant hexatonic poles are woven into a semantic network that is deeply enmeshed in the uncanny aspects of Wagner's final music drama.

The uncanny advantage of using androids in cognitive and social science research

The development of robots that closely resemble human beings can contribute to cognitive research. An android provides an experimental apparatus that has the potential to be controlled more precisely than any human actor. However, preliminary results indicate that only very humanlike devices can elicit the broad range of responses that people typically direct toward each other. Conversely, to build androids capable of emulating human behavior, it is necessary to investigate social activity in detail and to develop models of the cognitive mechanisms that support this activity. Because of the reciprocal relationship between android development and the exploration of social mechanisms, it is necessary to establish the field of android science. Androids could be a key testing ground for social, cognitive, and neuroscientific theories as well as platform for their eventual unification. Nevertheless, subtle flaws in appearance and movement can be more apparent and eerie in very humanlike robots. This uncanny phenomenon may be symptomatic of entities that elicit our model of human other but do not measure up to it. If so, very humanlike robots may provide the best means of pinpointing what kinds of behavior are perceived as human, since deviations from human norms are more obvious in them than in more mechanical-looking robots. In pursuing this line of inquiry, it is essential to identify the mechanisms involved in evaluations of human likeness. One hypothesis is that, by playing on an innate fear of death, an uncanny robot elicits culturally-supported defense responses for coping with death’s inevitability. An experiment, which borrows from methods used in terror management research, was performed to test this hypothesis. [Thomson Reuters Essential Science Indicators: Fast Breaking Paper in Social Sciences, May 2008]

Uncanny phenomena in psychotherapy

This paper is based on my master's thesis research into Pakeha and Maori psychotherapists' and counsellors' experiences of inexplicable phenomena while working with clients. These phenomena may take the form of 'uncanny' knowings, 'synchronistic' dreams, bizarre visual images, or 'spirit forms'. The experiences create feelings of profound loving connectedness and of being part of a greater whole where self and other, dream and reality, and time and space are not as distinct as they appear in everyday life. At these times, therapists and counsellors often describe feeling as if they have access to universal knowledge or are being spoken to by an intelligent Other. I discuss these experiences and interpretations and the problematic place these phenomena have within psychoanalytic theory whereby they have largely been excluded from discussion.