Professor Nicola Dibben
BSc(Hons), MA, MEd, PhD, FHEA
Department of Music
Professor of Music
(she/her)
Faculty Director of Research and Innovation, Arts and Humanities
Full contact details
Department of Music
Jessop Building
Leavygreave Road
Sheffield
S3 7RD
- Profile
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My academic experience combines teaching, research and knowledge exchange in the science and psychology of music, alongside leadership roles supporting collaborative and interdisciplinary research.
I am particularly interested in music listening and what that engagement means for individuals' self-perception and understanding of the world. I work in three overlapping areas: music cognition, popular music studies and music digitalisation. My teaching is informed by my empirical research into how people perceive and understand musical structures and meanings. My research has used listening studies, interviews, surveys, music analysis and theory to understand the meanings and emotions that individuals experience with music. I use these to show how important constructs, such as our gender and our relationship to the natural world are encountered and shaped through music.
Much of this work focuses on popular music, and in 2011, after publishing a book on Björk’s music, I collaborated with Björk on her multimedia album-app Biophilia - the first album for tablet computer. More recently my interest in digital transformations has been focused on synthetic media and co-developing assistive AI music generation technologies with computer scientists (MIMA) and professional musicians. We’re doing this not just to create inspiring and ethical tools for musicians, but as a ‘live lab’ to better understand the impacts of these emerging technologies. Social justice has been a recurring theme in my work, most explicitly through my investigation of social and environmental action through music in Colombia and the UK.
In 2022 I received an honorary doctorate from the University of Oslo for my contributions to music studies. I hold degrees from City University of London and the University of Sheffield and have had visiting appointments at several international institutions.
- Research interests
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My research focuses on the experience and production of (popular) music in contemporary culture. My current research projects include:
- Investigating music-making, ethics and IP in AI music generation. Projects include: participatory design of assistive AI music generation software for sonic-branding, commercial and popular music, AI voice conversion for trans singers using music creation to teach; computer coding, and anAHRC funded network Datasounds, datasets and datasense;
- Identifying how new musical multimedia and X-reality technologies are impacting recorded popular music making and experience.
- Investigating the ways music engagement may contribute to our environmental values and beliefs through a collaboration with musician Erland Cooper.
- Working to decolonise music cognition through a British Academy funded Writing Workshop.
- Publications
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Journal articles
- The role of embodied simulation and visual imagery in emotional contagion with music. Music & Science, 5.
- Editors’ Introduction: Connectivity and Diversity in Music Cognition. Empirical Musicology Review, 19(1), 1-9.
- Understanding Musical Beauty. Empirical Studies of the Arts.
- Cultivating meaning and self-transcendence to increase positive emotions and decrease anxiety in music performance. Psychology of Music.
- A cognitive intervention to correct a maladaptive technique in organists due to prior music learning: A randomized controlled trial. Psychology of Music, 030573562311591-030573562311591.
Conference proceedings papers
- View this article in WRRO Acoustic effects of facial feminisation surgery on speech and singing: A case study. Processings of Interspeech 2024. Kos island, Greece, 1 September 2024 - 1 September 2024.
Exhibitions
Preprints
- Research group
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I am a member of the Muses Mind Machine research centre and regularly collaborate with MiMA: Machine Intelligence for Music and Audio.
I have extensive supervisory experience and am happy to support highly qualified doctoral and postdoctoral candidates who wish to work with psychologically-informed approaches to answer important research questions in music and AI, the experience of new musical multimedia, or music in science communication and environmentalism. See the information on applying for a PhD.
Current PhDs
- Cliodnha Hughes, Voice conversion for singers, 2022-
- Edmondo Cicchetti, Musical summarisation for sonic branding, 2023-
- Jaytee Tang, Cultural influences on emotional responses to music, 2021-
- Kate Wareham, Musical sociabilities of young adults in temporary homes, 2018-
- Persefoni Tzanaki, Rhythmic synchronisation and empathy, 2020-
- Professional activities and memberships
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I am on the editorial board of the open access White Rose University Press and former editor of the journals Popular Music and Empirical Musicology Review and was a subpanel member for the Research Excellence Framework in 2014 and 2021 (Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies).