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Diana Deutsch

Adjunct Professor
Area(s) of Expertise

Diana Deutsch  is Adjunct Professor at the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics in the Music Department at Stanford University, and  Emeritus Professor in the Psychology Department at the University of California, San Diego. Her publications include 'Musical Illusions and Phantom Words: How Music and Speech Unlock Mysteries of the Brain' (2019), 'The Psychology of Music,' (1st ed. 1982; 2nd ed. 1999; 3rd ed. 2013); and the compact discs 'Musical Illusions  and Paradoxes' (1995) and 'Phantom Words and Other Curiosities' (2003). She has discovered a number of musical illusions and paradoxes, and investigates absolute pitch, and memory and attention in music.

Deutsch Co -Founded the 'International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition' series. She founded the 'Society for Music Perception and Cognition', serving as its Founding President, and founded the journal 'Music Perception', serving as its Founding Editor. She published the edited volume 'The Psychology of Music ' (1st ed. 1982; 2nd ed. 1999; 3rd ed., 2013).   Her work has been featured in Scientific American, New Scientist, New York Times, The Washington Post, U.S. News and World Report, The Daily Mail, Globe and Mail, The Guardian, Huffington Post, The Telegraph, ScienceNow, National Geographic, Pour La Science (France) Spiegel (Germany), Die Welt (Germany), Forskning (Norway), and NZZ am Sonntag (Switzerland).  She has been interviewed on NBC, BBC, CBC, ABC, German Public Radio, Italian Public Radio (RAI),  Austrian Public Radio, and on NOVA, Redes TV (Spain),  and the Discovery Channel. Museums and festivals in which her illusions have been exhibited include The Exporatorium, The Boston Museum of Science, The Denver Museum of Nature and Science, The Franklin Institute, the Edinburgh Science Festival, the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Germany), and the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art (Portugal).

Deutsch received the Rudolf Arnheim Award for Outstanding Achievement in Psychology and the Arts from the American Psychological Association; the Gustav Theodor Fechner Award for Outstanding Contributions to Empirical Aesthetics from the International Association of Empirical Aesthetics; the Science Writing Award for Professionals in Acoustics from the Acoustical Society of America; and the Gold Medal Award from the Audio Engineering Society.