Barbara Tillman

Barbara Tillmann's work focuses on deciphering the cognitive and neural mechanisms that allow the human brain to perceive musical structures. In 2007, after a doctorate in cognitive psychology and a post-doctoral fellowship in cognitive neuroscience, the researcher became head of the Auditory Cognition and Psychoacoustics team. It addresses the differences between verbal and non-verbal auditory processing of music and their involved neural structures.

From this perspective, she studies more particularly the phenomena of congenital amusia, an inability to perceive music from which 4% of the population suffers. Barbara Tillmann's investigations have also helped to reveal the beneficial role of music in the treatment of certain cognitive disorders. She thus demonstrated that musical cues could improve the linguistic performance of children suffering from dyslexia or dysphasia. Rewarded in 2004 with the bronze medal from the CNRS, Barbara Tillmann strives to regularly transmit her research results through books and articles to the general public or by organizing conferences, such as the international conference “Music and Neuroscience” at Dijon in 2014.