معرفی
Alexis Deighton MacIntyre is a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit (CBU), University of Cambridge, within the School of Clinical Medicine. Her research investigates temporal structure in speech and its role in perception under challenging listening conditions, including background noise and spectral degradation.
Her academic journey includes:
- BMus in Music Performance from Vancouver Island University
- MPhil from University of Cambridge's Centre for Music and Science (funded by Cambridge Trust Canada Scholarship)
- PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience from University College London (funded by UCL Research Excellence Scholarship)
MacIntyre's research integrates auditory perception, speech processing, and temporal cognition, with focus on how rhythmic processes in auditory and motor systems facilitate speech production and perception. Her work employs behavioral experiments, physiological measurements, and computational modeling to examine speech breathing, cortical tracking of speech envelopes, and neural correlates in cochlear implant users. Current projects explore how temporal structure enhances speech intelligibility in noisy environments.
Her publications (2018-2025) reveal consistent progression from foundational work on speech breathing and rhythm to advanced neural decoding of speech envelopes. Key trends include cross-linguistic studies of auditory illusions, computational methods for physiological signal analysis, and investigation of spectral degradation effects on cortical processing. This trajectory demonstrates increasing technical sophistication in EEG analysis and machine learning applications.
Scientific recognition includes:
- Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship
- Cambridge Trust Canada Scholarship
- UCL Research Excellence Scholarship
Her research is currently funded by the Leverhulme Trust and Isaac Newton Trust for the project "Finding the Flow: Temporal Contributions to Speech Perception and Intelligibility," following doctoral support from UCL. She collaborates extensively with Dr. Matt Davis (Programme Leader) and Dr. Tobias Goehring on neural mechanisms of speech perception, particularly in cochlear implant users. Previous work at UCL with Professor Sophie Scott developed automated approaches for speech breathing analysis.
MacIntyre actively contributes to the Cambridge Hearing Group and Hearing and Language Group at the CBU, participating in interdisciplinary research on auditory processing and language mechanisms within the university's neuroscience ecosystem.
