HE ERC Proof of Concept Grant 2025-2026

A joint music making game augmenting social skills in autistic individuals

Abstract: Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a condition marked by communication difficulties, but some individuals with ASD excel in understanding and responding to music. Joint musical activities have shown promise in improving social behavior among people with ASD. However, existing music-based interventions have limitations: they lack precise control, flexibility, and accessibility, often requiring training or therapist presence. To address these issues, the AUTISMUS project aims to create technology that allows ASD individuals to easily access engaging and interactive musical activities, even from home. This project leverages a pillar of my ERC StG – the eMusic Box (eMB) – a device developed to enable non-musicians to make music together, mutually adapting to each other’s performance. We will assess if individuals with ASD can use the eMB effectively and whether it enhances their social functioning. If successful, we plan to bring this technology to market, considering insights from end-users. The eMB's impact spans various stakeholders, including individuals with ASD, caregivers, educational institutions, healthcare professionals, therapy centers, research organizations, and autism support groups. Its versatility suits ASD individuals of different ages and abilities. Compared to existing technologies, the eMB offers superior accessibility, flexibility, and interactivity. Our exploitation route involves patenting the technology and licensing it to a market leader for broad distribution to both B2B and B2C customers, fostering innovation and enhancing global products and services.

Total budget: 150.000,00€

Total contribution: 150.000,00€

H2020 ERC - Starting Grant 2021-2026

Sensorimotor Foundations of Communicative Musicality

Abstract: Most human communication relies on experience, with few exceptions, one being music. Communicative musicality – the ability to communicate through music – can cross developmental, linguistic and cultural boundaries. Identifying the foundations of communicative musicality is a question of outstanding importance in cognitive science, as this ability has been suggested to support all human communication. Yet, to date, music is either studied in non-communicative contexts (i.e. with players or listeners in isolation) or not as a predisposition (i.e. focusing only on expert musicians). Building on the fact that it takes movement to make music, and that listeners move in response to music, MUSICOM tests whether the predisposition for communicative musicality is grounded in the capacity to instinctively communicate through movement. MUSICOM examines the behaviour and brain activity of laymen making music, and lay listeners responding to it, in real-time and interactive scenarios. A pillar of MUSICOM is the use of a validated novel experimental device offering the unique opportunity to allow everyone to make music and selectively control three fundamental musical features – rhythm, pitch and loudness – irrespective of training. Communicative musicality will be examined as a function of: (i) information transfer between a player and a listener, with gradually richer tasks moving from pure listening to listener-directed performance and joint music making; (ii) musical expertise, from non-musically-trained adults to expert musicians; and (iii) development, from children to adults. MUSICOM could change how we view and study music: shifting from an elite activity to a communicative predisposition accessible to everyone. MUSICOM will have groundbreaking implications for understanding the neurocognitive building blocks of human communication and its development. It will ultimately provide an empirical ground for testing the widespread use of music in clinical settings.

Total budget: 1.434.062,00€

Total contribution: 1.434.062,00€