In Public Opinion Prosthetic Hands Are More Eerie Than Robotic Hands

General public seems to consider prosthetic hands too eerie for comfort unless it looks like a human hand. A study by Manchester University got thirty six females and seven males to grade human, robotic and prosthetic hands on a scale of one to nine. The study revealed that the majority considered prosthetic hands to be eerie unless it looked like a human hand. Earlier studies had shown that people found robots that looked like humans to be uncomfortable to have around as opposed to the robots that looked mechanical. This is known as uncanny valley and understanding this will help design prosthetic limbs in the future. Dr Emma Gowen from Manchester University’s Faculty of Life Science, who was also a part of the study, also stated that further research was necessary to help understand social perception and how humans perceive each other.