How can humans tell that something is ‘off’ when presented with a CGI image that is very close to looking like the real thing? More specifically, why does this effect occur in things like CGI dragons or monsters or [that Sonic](https://pixel.nymag.com/imgs/daily/vulture/2019/05/01/01-sonic-the-hedgehog.w600.h315.2x.jpg), which are obviously not real to start off with?
And why does the ‘uncanny valley’ effect not occur in inanimate objects (for instance, I have never heard of anyone being creeped out by a CGI donut)?
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There’s this (https://youtu.be/PEikGKDVsCc) by Vsauce that kind of describes it really well.
We humans generally read emotions and stuff from people’s faces. And we know some inanimate objects aren’t human, and they’re not a threat. But for a humanlike object, we by nature try to read whether it’s a threat or not by reading the expressions, and when the expressions are unreadable, we, just in case, are scared of it as if it were a threat. It may sound stupid, but apparently it helped us survive so well that it is entirely ingrained in us.
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