There's a hypothesis in robotics and animated film called "The Uncanny Valley".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley

It has a curve associated with it.  The curve plots our emotional response to an
object/ movie as a function of the degree of realism.  The emotional response is
positive and increases for a while, then goes for a big negative dip before
going positive again.  I could come up with examples for points on the curve:
stick figures to Wall-E to The Incredibles to Polar Express to Seinfeld.  Polar
Express creeps me out.

Over the years, I was occasionally making comments on IRTC entries that they had
wooden attempts at exhaustive photorealism.  It just struck me that I think the
"Uncanny Valley" hypothesis also applies to images of still landscapes.  For a
long time, I thought I was just being picky or unsportsmanlike.  But I think
that the intentionally stylized backgrounds of say, Ice Age, generate more
positive emotion than attempts at exhaustive realism which get a grade of "C".
I think there were a lot of other folks who thought it be far more important to
be as far as possible to the right on the curve, even if it meant you were in
the Valley.

Any thoughts?

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