Why can't Mitt Romney (even in spite of his robotic demeanor) put away his more cartoonish competitors?
The answer may lie deep in the "uncanny valley" of Doctor Masahiro Mori.
Take a look at this discussion and you'll see what I mean:
"Though originally intended to provide an insight into human psychological reaction to robotic design, the concept expressed by this phrase is equally applicable to interactions with nearly any nonhuman entity. Stated simply, the idea is that if one were to plot emotional response against similarity to human appearance and movement, the curve is not a sure, steady upward trend. Instead, there is a peak shortly before one reaches a completely human “look” . . . but then a deep chasm plunges below neutrality into a strongly negative response before rebounding to a second peak where resemblance to humanity is complete.
This chasm—the uncanny valley of Doctor Mori’s thesis—represents the point at which a person observing the creature or object in question sees something that is nearly human, but just enough off-kilter to seem eerie or disquieting. The first peak, moreover, is where that same individual would see something that is human enough to arouse some empathy, yet at the same time is clearly enough not human to avoid the sense of wrongness. The slope leading up to this first peak is a province of relative emotional detachment—affection, perhaps, but rarely more than that.
..."
The Uncanny Valley
Why are monster-movie zombies so horrifying and talking animals so fascinating?
Written and illustrated by Dave Bryant
In the hearts of his countrymen (and women), mu very unscientific poll asks you to consider "where is Mitt in this graph?
(Actually in most images of this graph, the bottom rung belongs to zombies, not Heavy Rain characters.)
In another article DOWN IN THE VALLEY: The Uncanny Valley… by Julian Phillips the impact of Dr. Mori's theory on popular animated movies also give us some insight into why Mitt Romney cannot 'connect' with his own Party's base.
"... This can be shown on a graph, but simply stated, Mori’s research indicated that people feel comfortable or empathetic with non-human creations that are made to appear human only up to a point. Like if you have a robot, he may be a simple mechanical man, and that’s fine; you add some human features such as life-like arms and legs, or maybe a human-looking or even goofy face, and that’s pretty cool; but when you go too far, and the robot (or cartoon) resembles a human being too closely, or just enough to bug us—suddenly Mori’s numbers for the emotional response of us real, flesh-and-blood human-types drops off into a steep valley of contempt. Why? Who knows? Perhaps as the non-human begins to approach the human too closely, like a slightly flawed mirror, we glimpse something repulsive about ourselves, a coldness or ‘in-humanity’, that we simply don’t prefer.
... What Mori is telling animators, is that the emotional feeling or audience empathy for human characters in these types of creations, is actually deeper or greater the ‘less human’ (or more exaggerated, cartoonish) they are. ..."
Which also may explain to some degree why candidates like Santorum, Gingrich, Bachmann, Paul, Cain (and non-candidates like Sarah Whatshername) etc have been able to connect far better than they had any reasonable right to do. The more cartoonish they become, the more "loveable" they appear. Given their collective resemblance to the
Mos Eisely Cantina customers, they have no worries of falling into the uncanny valley.
Over at the Atlantic, Brian Fung raised the question back in January:
The Uncanny Valley: What Robot Theory Tells Us About Mitt Romney
GOP front-runner looks just enough like the perfect picture of an American president to make us uncomfortable.
By Brian Fung
Jan 31 2012,
...Romney's problem is that he occupies a kind of uncanny valley for politicians. Just as people who interact with lifelike robots often develop a strange feeling due to something they can't quite name, something about Romney leaves voters unsettled.
As with the robotic version of the uncanny valley, the closer Romney gets to becoming real to a voter, the more his likeability declines. On television and at a distance, the former governor radiates presidential qualities from every patrician pore. The effect is almost involuntary, considering the substantial advantages Romney enjoys from appearance alone. But in person, his polished persona gives way to what appears a surprisingly forced and inauthentic character. What's disturbing about episodes like those detailed in this story isn't that they happen -- it's that they're inexplicably happening to a man who should, by the looks of him, navigate the political waters with ease.
Most politicians tend to be ordinary-looking people who spend their time convincing voters they're office-quality material. Romney is rushing the other way: he's the politician from central casting who is stumbling through an audition for a role of regular human. Not that other candidates don't make mistakes -- they do, all the time -- but in Romney's case awkward moments stand out like neon road signs precisely because we expect him to make the jump from TV to reality as effortlessly and convincingly as his polished appearance would imply. ...
Can Romney lift himself out ot his uncanny political valley?
Maybe.
But in will take a very human effort to do so.
On the other hand, maybe he'll just decide that he likes it in the Uncanny Valley as long as the "rod and staff" of the 1% comfort him sufficiently to keep the primary wins rolling in.
It's just not clear whether money alone can build a bridge over the uncanny valley through which Mitt Romney is walking. (Though that approach will not fail through lack of trying.)