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The word “ken,” in some Middle English dialects, meant something like to know, to come to know, to learn, to share knowledge, or to conceive—that latter definition allowing this word to refer to both conception in the sense of birth and begetting, but also the conception of new ideas, or our emerging understanding as we learn about something.
The term “uncanny,” which seems to have entered common use sometime in the 19th century, refers to something that is “beyond one’s ken.” Which means something that is beyond our normal sense of things, beyond our ability to properly perceive, or beyond our capacity to understand.
This concept had been written about several times in early-19th century German Idealist publications: usually in reference to the flatness of prior philosophical frameworks and a lack of then-modern intellectual support for the metaphysical which, in the mind of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, caused proponents of European Enlightenment concepts to unknowingly sow the seeds of their own undoing.
The earliest formal, psychological exploration of this concept was published in 1906 by a German psychiatrist named Ernst Jentsch, but it didn’t become popular and well-known as a subject of exploration until the far more popular German neurologist and psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud began to write about it, as well.
Freud’s early work on this subject referred especially to the experience of encountering seemingly familiar things that are a bit off; some types of dolls and wax figures, in particular, were disturbing to him in this way, and were frequently used as examples in his writings about the uncanny.
He also posited that unknowingly repeated acts—like forgetting that you’ve walked a particular route and then walking that same way again in the future, feeling like you’ve been there before and have seen those same things in that order at some point, but not being able to understand why you feel that way—could spark a sense of discomfort and even dread stemming from uncanniness.
There are quite a few theories as to why this sense of things being slightly off, somewhat familiar but not quite familiar, or not quite as they should be, makes us so uncomfortable.
The concept of “abjection,” for instance, refers to an adjusted psychological state caused by a sense of life’s symbolic order—or more precisely, our sense of the way things should be, and the way they always have been—being knocked slightly off-kilter.
Things are close enough to familiar for us to want to lapse into thoughtless patterns and behaviors, but we sense something ever-so-minutely off about that familiar state of affairs, and thus cannot comfortably fall into those reflexive rhythms. This puts us on high alert for more data, and keeps us from fully relaxing.
There are also theories that tie sense of self to this perception of normalcy, and so this disruption of what we perceive to be how the world works and the relationships between things disrupts our sense of place within that larger collection of relationships, which then in turn creates a sense of ego-based dread: maybe we don’t know ourselves as well as we think we do, maybe we don’t understand our place in the world.
There may also be a somewhat simpler biological explanation for this uncanny valley response as well, though: it may be tied to our in-built sense of revulsion when exposed to people who seem to be unwell. This reflexive response is not always kind, but it likely helped protect our ancestors against transmissible diseases, as it would encourage them to stay away from other people who seemed to be unwell.
Similarly, there may be a social mirroring response at play here, with humans who encounter a human-like robot demonstrating knee-jerk empathy for the robot, before noticing something is off, and then experiencing a sense of having being tricked—which could trigger a flurry of subconscious danger-related response mechanisms.
A more contemporary version of this concept can be found in the world of robotics, and in particular our visceral response to human-like robots.
In 1970, the Japanese robotics professor Masahiro Mori wrote about this concept in relation to his work on not-yet humanoid robots, noting that it seemed likely that the more human-like robots became, the more uncomfortable those robots would make actual humans who interacted with them.
His phrasing of this concept was translated into English by the British-Polish art critic and digital art specialist, Jasia Reichardt, who in that translation coined the term “uncanny valley.”
This hypothesis was later expounded upon with formal research, indicating that when robots are made in non-human shapes, but with some human-like features—including human-ish behaviors, but also things like cartoon eyes or exaggerated faces—we tend to be drawn to them; and this is especially true if they mimic the shapes and behaviors of non-human entities we’re drawn to, like some types of animal.
The more human they become, though, and specifically the more human they become in a way that doesn’t quite reach perfection, the more disturbing the robot becomes.
A totally non-human robot, like an arm with a claw at one end, can be charming if it behaves in a way that we perceive as “cute.” Likewise, a cat- or seal-like robot can be downright adorable, even to people who don’t typically like robots or animal-shaped toys.
A robot that is 90% perfect, in terms of human-likeness and behavior, though, can be immensely disturbing to most people who encounter it; and it’s theorized that this sense of unease will remain until that hits something close to 100%, at which point these robots will be indistinguishable from actual humans, triggering none of our “okay, something’s wrong here,” subconscious, danger and revulsion reflexes.
There are other theories that aim to explain this concept, as well, ranging from the possibility that human-like robots make humans who encounter them feel threatened in some existential way, or that such robots make them think about their own deaths, their own cobbled-together nature, or the possibility that they could be replaced.
At a fundamental level, though, any sense of the uncanny can make us feel like we’re missing something, like reality is not what we always suspected, and that we’re being threatened in some vague, maybe physical, maybe only psychological way.
This can influence our perception of everything from other human beings—some of whom trigger this response in other human beings—to our opinions about products and services, robotic and software-based tools, and even aspects of our environment that aim to be familiar and reassuring, but which can instead make us feel like we face a persistent, unknown source of danger.
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