The Computer as Alter

Abstract
An experiment was performed to gather evidence about the tendency of Ss to react to a computer as if it were another person. Forty male and female undergraduates were run at a live CRT console on a series of games in which the computer displayed varying degrees of "intelligence." Recordings made of the spontaneous verbalizations of Ss revealed substantial evidence for the personification of the computer in 39 of the 40 cases. Use of personal pronouns to refer to the computer was greatest for the more "intelligent" computer games.