Quadruped Robots and Canine Likeness: The Uncanny Valley Effect

Author First name, Last name, Institution

Carolina Velasco, Ontario Tech University
Patrick C.K. Hung, Ontario Tech University
Farkhund Iqbal, Zayed University
Hamda Al Breiki, Zayed University
Hao An Tseng, Ontario Tech University

Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Source of Publication

Proceedings 2025 IEEE Conference on Artificial Intelligence Cai 2025

Publication Date

7-7-2025

Abstract

This paper presents canine likeness features in robotic quadrupeds that influence their social perception. We adopted Contrastive Language-Image Pre-Training (CLIP), a neural network that has demonstrated signatures of the Uncanny Valley effect, to explore how the perception of quadrupeds evolves as their level of canine likeness intensifies. Seven models were tested, ranging from a fully robotic quadruped to a living dog with 252 images. Our findings indicate that the Uncanny Valley effect also develops in quadruped robots. This finding is a reference to selecting an appropriate level of realism for canine likeness fourlegged robots in Human-Robot Interaction (HRI).

DOI Link

10.1109/cai64502.2025.00129

ISBN

[9798331524005]

Publisher

IEEE

First Page

719

Last Page

722

Disciplines

Computer Sciences

Keywords

Canine Likeness, Contrastive Language-Image PreTraining (CLIP), Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), Quadruped Robots, The Uncanny Valley

Scopus ID

105011266385

Recommended Citation

Velasco, Carolina; Hung, Patrick C.K.; Iqbal, Farkhund; Al Breiki, Hamda; and Tseng, Hao An, "Quadruped Robots and Canine Likeness: The Uncanny Valley Effect" (2025). All Works. 7427.
https://zuscholars.zu.ac.ae/works/7427

Indexed in Scopus

yes

Open Access

no