The true face of saints

[Gabriela]

The psychology of the uncanny valley, iirc, happens something like this: in an unrealistic representation of a human, your brain automatically recognizes it as something non-human, and so the unrealistic aspects don't intuitively register as weird (and, on a higher level, they may even serve some aesthetic/symbolic purposes, as is the case with icons). But after a certain level of realism your brain begins recognizing it as an actual human face, and so all the little deviations from how actual humans look begin to feel wrong or creepy, because your lizard brain thinks it's looking at an actual face with those features.

Yeah, basically that's it. The "uncanny valley" is the graphed dip where realism starts to get creepy, reversing the amesome trend. Like so:

 

Another important uncanny valley is this one:

[KnightofChrist]

 

Both of you should google "the uncanny valley". That's what this phenomenon is called.

I thought I had heard about it before, I just couldn't remember and was going to look it up yesterday when I got home. But my wifi wasn't working with me and then I forgot. So thanks!

I think I first heard about it from New Scientist, they have some excellent videos on Youtube. One of the oddest one's was the robotic device which navigation is 'powered' by the brain cells of mice. I guess I've derailed the thread enough with Science stuff.