MUSIC THERAPY AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: AN INTEGRATIVE REVIEW

Abstract

This integrative review investigated the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into music therapy practice and research, aiming to identify common themes, future projections, and connections between music therapy and technological developments, with the general objective of examining the role of AI in music therapy practice and research. The literature search was carried out in September 2024. A total of 22 studies were selected, highlighting the use of AI as a therapeutic tool for data processing, analysis, and generation. The results point to four main areas of integration between artificial intelligence and music therapy: personalized music recommendation systems, instrumentation and monitoring in Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs), emotion classification, and the implementation of Socially Assistive Robotics (SAR) systems. The review also highlights the lack of clinical standardization in the algorithms tested, the limited trials involving participants, and the absence of a music therapy epistemology guiding AI development. All selected texts were published in English, predominantly by researchers from China and the United States. The integration of AI into music therapy introduces new parameters for clinical practice while underscoring the need for articulation between bioethics and data science.