Embracing Uncertainty: The Power of Curiosity and Exploration in Learning

Today’s world is filled with immediate information. While it is a welcome haven from the discomfort of uncertainty, that discomfort might hinder the process of deep thought. Why is the feeling of uncertainty so aversive? Could it somehow be harnessed into a source of motivation to improve how we learn and think critically? In this pair of talks, two experts in distinct but related fields will combine approaches from psychology and neuroscience to discuss the importance of letting the mind take risks, make mistakes and wonder.

Lisa Son, PhD, Professor of Psychology at Barnard College, Columbia University, will begin by sharing her research on metacognition, the process of thinking about your own thinking, and how it can help us learn better. In the quest for perfection and expertise, our learning becomes increasingly errorless at the expense of metacognition and paves the way to impostorism. How can we move past the fear of failure and embrace uncertainty?

Jacqueline Gottlieb, PhD, Professor of Neuroscience in the Kavli Institute for Brain Science and the Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute at Columbia University, will then talk about what happens in the brain when our minds have the freedom to be curious and explore. How we orient our attention is a complex process in the brain with consequences for not just how we find answers, but how we ask questions. Without this mental awareness, how can we improve our thoughts and decisions?

Following the two talks, Jennifer Bussell, PhD, Associate Research Scientist at Columbia University’s Zuckerman Institute, will moderate a discussion and Q&A with the speakers. Audience questions are welcomed, either submitted during registration or live during the event.

RSVP by Wednesday, April 19, 2023

Registration is required.
Closed captioning will be made available via Zoom.

For more information about this event, please contact the Zuckerman Institute at [email protected]