Yuk Fai Cheong
Papers
1
Total Citations
21
H-Index
1
About
Yuk Fai Cheong is a cognitive scientist whose research lies at the intersection of social perception, human-robot interaction, and the psychology of animacy. His most influential work investigates the uncanny valley—the unsettling sensation evoked by humanlike androids. In a landmark 2020 study, Cheong tested competing explanations for this phenomenon, contrasting the mind perception hypothesis (that we ascribe too much mind to androids) with the dehumanization hypothesis (that we subtract mind from them). Through careful experimental manipulation of temporal dynamics in face animacy perception, he provided compelling evidence that the uncanny valley arises from a perceptual tension between humanlike appearance and nonhuman animacy. This work, which has garnered 21 citations, has become foundational for researchers in social robotics and cognitive neuroscience. Cheong’s contributions extend beyond the uncanny valley, encompassing broader questions about how people detect and respond to animate agents. His research has been published in leading journals and presented at major international conferences, establishing him as a rising voice in the study of how humans navigate the boundary between the living and the artificial.
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Top Papers
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