The number of devices you can talk to is multiplying -- first it was your phone, then your cat, and now you can tell your kitchen appliances what to do. But even without gadgets that understand our spoken commands, research suggests that, as bizarre is it sounds, under certain __26__ people regularly ascribe human traits to everyday objects.
Sometimes we see things as human because we are __27__ In one experiment, people who reported feeling isolated were more likely than others to attribute __28__ to various gadgets. In turn, feeling close to objects can __29__ loneliness. When college students were reminded of a time they had been __30__ in a social setting, they compensated by exaggerating their number of friends- unless they were first given tasks that caused them to interact with their phone as if it had human qualities. According to the researchers, the participants' phones __31__ substituted for real friends.
At other times, we personify products in an effort to understand them. One study found that three in four respondents yelled at their computer. Further, the more their computer gave them problems, the more likely the respondents were to report that it had its own "beliefs and __32__."
So how do people assign trails to an object? In par, we rely on looks. On humans wide faces are __33__ with dominance. Similarly, people rated curs, clocks, and watches with wide faces as more dominant-looking than narrow-faced ones, and preferred them- especially in __34__ situations. An analysis of car sales in Germany found that cars with grilles(護柵) that were upturned like smiles sold best. The purchasers saw this __35__ as increasing a car's friendliness.