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Photo of Liila Taruffi

I am an interdisciplinary music researcher working at the intersection of psychology, aesthetics and neuroscience. I currently work as Assistant Professor in Music Psychology at Hong Kong Baptist University. My core work focuses on music’s capability to influence emotion and consciousness, specifically mental states such as mind-wandering and imagination. My studies examine how music listening can act as a trigger for shaping the occurrence and phenomenology of thoughts and mental images, opening up new directions for investigating how music can positively impact our minds. Ultimately, I am interested in how we can harness music effectively to enhance mental health and psychological well-being in our daily lives. Although the scientific investigation of music's effects on health is relatively recent, the healing power of music has been recognised for centuries cross-culturally. For example, in ancient Chinese language the similarity in characters for "medicine" (yao - 藥) and "music" (yue - 樂) serves as a linguistic testament to the profound cultural belief in music's therapeutic qualities.

Latest Publications

Thematic Contents of Mental Imagery are

Shaped by Concurrent Task-Irrelevant Music.

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