Center for People & Infrastructures

Virtual reality qualitatively changes the nature of communication. Unlike other media, avatars can alter their physical appearance and behavior in the eyes of conversational partners for strategic purposes. These transformations have a drastic impact on social, persuasive and instructional abilities, allowing avatars to achieve interpersonal goals that face-to-face humans cannot.

Jeremy Bailenson is Founding Director of the Virtual Human Interaction Lab and an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at Stanford University.

This event is part of the series Culture as Data : Social Spaces on the Internet, coordinated by Center Co-Director Karrie Karahalios.