Based in the School of Society and Culture
Professor Eduardo
Miranda’s pioneering research demonstrates the powerful role that music can
play in improving health and transforming people’s lives. Through the £2.7
Million
RadioMe
project, Eduardo has been using artificial intelligence to adapt and
personalise live radio for people living alone with dementia, aiding their
quality of life and helping them to live independently for longer.
Eduardo has also developed a unique Brain-Computer Music
Interface technology which enables individuals with severe motor impairment to
create and perform music with signals from brain activity. This enabled
Rosemary Johnson, who was prevented from becoming a word-class violinist due to
an accident resulting in brain damage, to make music once again.
The Institute of Education’s
Professor Jocey Quinn’s
research also touches on the role of music in supporting patients, including those with
dementia, autism and
stroke. The Beyond Words project funded by Arts Council England and conducted in collaboration with Plymouth Music Zone worked with people who communicate in ways other than words. Rather than seeing them in deficit terms the researchers positioned them as post-verbal with unexplored capacities. They followed their engagement with music over sixteen months and also conducted 30 arts workshops with them, as well as 44 interviews with family members and carers, and focus groups with music leaders. Their research used posthuman theories and methodologies to show how participants challenge limited ideas about what it is to be human. Jocey is now currently researching how people with dementia are both learners and teachers, showing that they have the capacity to learn new things even at a very late stage of the disease.