How People Treat Computers Like People:
      Recent Experimental Evidence and Implications for Design
    
                       Prof Clifford Nass
         Stanford University Communications Department

Since 1993, our lab has performed a series of experimental studies that
demonstrate the depth and breadth of social responses to computers.  The
recent work focuses on: 1) advanced interfaces (e.g., speech input and
output, agent representations), 2) direct comparisons of human-computer
interaction and computer-mediated communication, and 3) cross-cultural
comparisons, and 4) behaviors in addition to attitudes.  Areas to be
discussed include humor, reciprocity, gender and ethnic stereotyping,
non-verbal communication, self-disclosure and trust, conformity,
consistency, and personality.  I will discuss both the research and its
application.

Clifford Nass is an associate professor of communication at Stanford
University, with courtesy appointments in Science, Technology, and Society,
Sociology, and Symbolic System.  He is co-director of the Interface Lab at
Stanford University.  Nass is author (with B. Reeves) of "The Media
Equation: How People Treat Computers, Television, and New Media Like Real
People and Places," and over 40 articles on human-technology interaction and
statistical methodology.  He has consulted on the design of over 100
software and hardware products, for companies such as Microsoft, Sony,
Hewlett-Packard, General Magic, Dell, and Charles Schwab.