Dr. Valentin Guigon is a postdoctoral researcher in psychology and neuroscience at the University of Maryland, working in Caroline Charpentier’s Social Learning and Decisions Lab (SLD Lab). He is also an affiliated member of the Artificial Intelligence Interdisciplinary Institute at Maryland (AIM). His research combines behavioral experimentation, computational modeling, and neuroimaging to investigate how people learn, update beliefs, and make decisions under uncertainty, particularly in social contexts.

Areas of Interest

  • Decision-making
  • Social learning
  • Computational neuroscience
  • Computational psychiatry
  • NeuroAI

Degrees

  • Licence
    Psychology, at Université Aix-Marseille, France
  • Licence
    Neuroscience, Université Aix-Marseille, France
  • Master
    Cognitive Science, at Université Lumière Lyon 2, France
  • Ph.D
    Cognitive Neuroscience, at Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, France

I am currently teaching NACS 645 at UMD.

I was trained in psychology and neuroscience at Aix-Marseille Université and completed a master’s in cognitive science at Université Lumière Lyon 2. I earned my Ph.D. in neuroscience at Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, under the supervision of Jean-Claude Dreher and Marie Claire Villeval. My doctoral work focused on the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying the transmission of uncertain information in social and economic environments.

Over the years, I’ve adopted a multidisciplinary approach to decision-making - bridging behavioral experiments, computational modeling, and brain imaging to understand belief formation, preference learning, and social inference. I’ve worked on questions ranging from reward learning and moral decision-making to updating beliefs about others, updating trust in others, and networked cognition.

In my current work, I supervise computational neuroscience research projects focused on social learning, particularly examining trust in dynamic and uncertain environments using computational models, fMRI, and behavioral game theory approaches.

Additionally, I contribute to lab-wide infrastructure for data stewardship, modeling workflows, and reproducible pipelines. I’m also interested in the development of AI tools that support scientific reasoning and help structure the production of knowledge. Overall, I strongly believe in, and apply, continuous learning. To that extent, I enjoy working with cutting-edge methods and technologies (e.g., Bayesian inference, LLM and AI agents).

Research Methods
Behavior
Computational Modeling
Brain Connectivity Analysis
fMRI
Research Interests
Artificial Intelligence
Brain Connectivity
Cognitive Neuroscience
Computational Neuroscience
Functional Brain Imaging
Social cognition and theory of mind
Limbic System
Neurobiology
computational psychiatry

I believe that my duties as a researcher comprise participating in the public discourse when my expertise is relevant. To that extent, I have contributed to discussions on disinformation (fr), echo chambers (fren), polarization (fr), critical thinking (en) and belief calibration through public-facing pieces grounded in research.

I participate in public education efforts, such as my invited instruction at the latest 2025 CORTECS summer school on critical thinking.

I joined the Affiliate program of Artificial Intelligence Interdisciplinary Institute at Maryland, and more recently the Affiliate program of the Neuroscience and Cognitive Science program at UMD.

I take great interest in systems that support scientific work and reproducibility.

Current Students

Former Students

Picture of Valentin Guigon
Biology Psychology Building, 3150 C
Neuroscience and Cognitive Science
Email
vguigon [at] umd.edu