To test whether the sections of the brain that are activated when a human sees a robot expressing powerful emotions are the same as when a human sees another human expressing them, an international group of researchers stuck volunteers into an fMRI machine. They did not respond to the robots’ facial movement. But when they were told to concentrate on the emotional content of the robots’ expressions, their brains evidenced significantly increased activity, including the areas that contain mirror neurons, showing Resonance.

Resonance describes the mechanism by which the neural substrates involved in the internal representation of actions, as well as emotions and sensations, are also recruited when perceiving another individual experiencing the same action, emotion or sensation.