Episode #25: Interview with Simon Henderson

Naturalistic Decision Making

Date: 1/29/2021

Show Description:

Simon Henderson is an independent deception consultant working in the UK and the US. His career has involved researching, teaching, and consulting on deception, counter-deception, information operations and cyber operations within a variety of government, military, and law enforcement organisations. He is passionate about novel and pro-social applications of these fields.

Learn more about Simon’s work:

Deception by Design

Evaluationof the counter fake-news game, Harmony Square

Immersive theatre company, Punchdrunk

Learn more about NDM:

NaturalisticDecisionMaking.org

Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making

Where to find hosts Brian Moon and Laura Militello:

Brian’s website

Brian’s LinkedIn

Brian’s Twitter

Laura’s website

Laura’s LinkedIn

Laura’s Twitter

Timestamps:

Simon’s early path to a career in deception [1:15]

First exposure to NDM [5:54]

Proposing to apply magic and deception skills to military [20:59]

The technique of misdirection in deception [24:42]

Nuances of using deception on experts [32:31]

One question that could determine if someone is a magician [41:51]

Differences between observing and performing magic [47:58]

Outlook for the next 15 years and details about Simon’s blog and book [51:48]

Two truths and a lie [1:02:55]