Philippe Rochat
Papers
2
Total Citations
351
H-Index
2
About
Philippe Rochat is a researcher whose work sits at a compelling intersection of cognitive science, social psychology, and human-robot interaction, with a particular focus on the **uncanny valley phenomenon**—the unsettling sense of eeriness people experience when encountering near-human replicas such as androids or computer-generated faces. His highly cited 2015 paper, "The Uncanny Valley: Existence and Explanations," has garnered over 330 citations and stands as a foundational reference for scholars seeking to understand the nonlinear relationship between perceived human likeness and likability, originally proposed by roboticist Masahiro Mori in 1970. Rochat's scholarship extends beyond simply confirming the phenomenon's existence; he probes the psychological mechanisms underlying it. His 2020 study on the temporal dynamics of face animacy perception further advances this agenda by empirically testing competing explanations—specifically whether the uncanny valley arises from mind ascription or dehumanization processes. Together, his contributions have helped transform a decades-old robotics hypothesis into a rigorously examined psychological construct, offering valuable insights for designers, engineers, and scientists working at the frontier of human-machine interaction.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
- 1The Uncanny Valley: Existence and Explanations330 citations · 2015
- 2