Uncanny valley - an everyday things post

A cola company came up with this bus campaign recently. It features cut out decals of rugby players 'waiting' for the bus as part of the overall campaign. It was quite topical but eerily striking in some situations. It reminded me on the uncanny valley effect: that puts people on edge when confronted with something close to a person but without the normal non verbal cues that we process unconsciously. e.g. "Hey you're not a talking corpse so I won't panic".

There is one on a bus shelter next to my drive way. When I back my car out, especially at night, my peripheral vision and hind brain tells me there was someone at the bus stop. Apparently your brain can't distinguish a picture of a person from a real one and throws the same switches, which seems to be what happens when I'm backing out.

I keep thinking there's a large person just next to the car, flight/fight reaction kicks in before I consciously realise its just a cut out.

Even though I knew it was there, each time i was focused on backing the car out it slipped my mind. Thusly, I kept getting fooled each time. There's a lot to be said for task focus and distraction for getting attention. You can work with these forces and make your websites more effective or work against it.