To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2008.05.003 Byline: Byron Hall, David Dryden Henningsen Keywords: Social facilitation; Computers As Social Actors Abstract: The Computers As Social Actors (CASA) research paradigm has examined how individuals respond to computers programmed to interact in various ways. In the current research, we extend the principles of CASA to determine whether computer icons can be used to produce social facilitation effects. Varying task difficulty and the presence or absence of a computer icon (i.e., Microsoft word's Clip), performance on a typing task is considered. Overall, results provide some support for the contention that the mere presence of a computer icon may influence task performance. Author Affiliation: Department of Communication, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb IL, United States Article Note: (footnote) [star] This project was completed as a thesis by the first author under the direction of the second author.