Allie Sinclair

My name is Allie, and I’m a PhD Candidate in Cognitive Neuroscience at Duke University, where I’m co-supervised by Dr. Alison Adcock and Dr. Gregory Samanez-Larkin. Before I came to Duke, I earned an Honours B.Sc. in Psychology (Research Specialization) from the University of Toronto. There, I worked with Dr. Morgan Barense and Dr. William Cunningham to research how prediction error influences episodic memories and social learning.

Research Overview

What can we do to help people learn from error? I’m interested in how and why we update our memories and beliefs in response to feedback. Our flexible brains can recreate and revise our memories, letting us correct mistakes and integrate old and new knowledge. Yet we don’t always learn from feedback! My research explores the cognitive and neural conditions that make memory updating possible.

Applications

Understanding (and encouraging) learning from error lets us address many real-world problems. In ongoing work, I am testing applications for improving education, correcting misinformation, and changing beliefs about risk.