 I got the text and I nearly lost my mind! This was Michaela's response when she made Time Magazine's top 25 most influential people on the internet. But unlike the other people on that list, Michaela isn't real. She's a virtual Instagram influencer. She attends music festivals, eats at the best restaurants and appears in advertising for brands like Samsung and Spotify. Her 2.6 million followers comment things like, I'd love to meet you. And Michaela even replies to these comments, giving her followers a sense of genuine connection with her. Even if you don't follow Michaela, you've probably met a virtual human. Maybe in a video game or a movie, or maybe even in therapy. Their use in these settings relies on a pretty big assumption, that we respond and connect to virtual humans as if they were real. My research investigates the evidence for this assumption by focusing on the most striking and sometimes creepy feature of virtual humans, their face. Lots of experiments have asked people to make judgments about virtual and human faces, like how trustworthy they are. The problem is that they get different answers. Some find we trust virtual faces less than human ones, while others find that we trust them just as much. My research aims to solve this problem using a statistical technique called meta-analysis. Meta-analysis allows me to combine the evidence for lots of experiments and come up with an overall answer to my question. Do we trust virtual faces as much as human ones? The outcomes of my research could massively alter the course of Michaela's life. If I find that we do trust her, companies like Samsung and Spotify might prefer Michaela as the face of their brand, because she is predictable and can provide reliable and drama-free advertising that humans can't guarantee. But what if I find we trust her less than a real human? She probably won't just disappear, but it would limit the roles in our society she can fill. Maybe therapy with a virtual human is less effective. Or maybe we feel we can be more honest with a therapist who doesn't actually exist. Virtual humans are here, there's no getting around it. So it's essential we understand how we connect with them. Because Michaela might be fake, but her influence on our society is very real.