Stanford: Outdoor Science Talk
Outdoor Science Talks at the Cantor Arts Center - Wired for Speech: How Voice Activates Interactions with People and Computers (Talk 3)
Outdoor Science Talk 3 - Wired for Speech: How Voice Activates Interactions with People and Computers
FREE; no registration required
Technologies that talk and listen are populating computers, cars, call centers, and even home appliances and toys, but voice interfaces frequently seem to be more problem than opportunity. This talk will describe how the human brain and body are "wired" for speech: The sound of a voice, whether from a person or machine, causes us to respond as we respond to actual people and to behave as we would in any social situation.
In this lecture, you will discover how voice can lead people to be polite to computers, to gender-stereotype cars, to buy more when a website's personality matches their own, to be charmed by a toy's flattery, and to drive more safely when the car has the correct emotion. You will learn whether an automated call center should apologize when it can't understand what you say; why negotiations and creativity can improve when your words don't come from your mouth; when to speak to maximize learning; how to encourage people to disagree with a robot; and the perfect combination of microphone and speaker to elicit honesty. This discussion will also help you gain a better understanding of the future of the machines that will speak with and listen to us.
CLIFFORD NASS , The Thomas More Storke Professor and Professor, by courtesy, of Computer Science and Sociology
Clifford Nass is the director of the Communication Between Humans and Interactive Media (CHIMe) Lab and Co-Director of the Kozmetsky Global Collaboratory at Stanford. Nass is co-author of two award-winning books, The Media Equation and Wired for Speech, and more than 100 papers on human/technology interaction and experimental and statistical methodology. He has been involved in the design of more than 250 information products and services for companies including Microsoft, Sony, Charles Schwab, Fidelity, Philips, AOL, Toyota, BMW, Nissan, Time-Warner, Hewlett-Packard, and Dell.
Outdoor Science Talks at the Cantor Arts Center
Please join us for Stanford's acclaimed Summer Science Lecture Series on the lawn adjacent to the Cantor Arts Center on four Thursday evenings. You are invited to come early and wander through the art museum, buy dinner in the Art Center's Cool Cafe or bring your own picnic, and then settle on the lawn outside to hear informal lectures about cutting-edge research from four of Stanford's most esteemed professors.
We promise that all of the talks will be delivered in terms understandable to the lay public. So bring your whole family (high school age and up) and enjoy!
The Outdoor Science Series is co-sponsored by the Stanford Office for Science Outreach, the Cantor Arts Center, and Stanford Continuing Studies.
