
Naturalistic Decision Making
Brian Moon and Laura Militello interview leading NDM researchers who study and support people who make decisions under stress.
Latest episodes

Jun 14, 2023 • 42min
#44: Reflections on a Career in Cognitive Engineering with Kevin Oden of Lockheed Martin
Kevin Oden is an LM Fellow at Lockheed where has work for 14 years. Currently, he leads research initiatives focused on Human-Autonomy Collaboration. In this role, he supports cross corporation efforts and has responsibilities for engagements with universities, DOD service labs, and small business partners. He was earned his Ph.D. in Applied Experimental and Human Factors Psychology at the University of Central Florida. He was a Graduate Research Fellow at the Consortium of Universities in Washington D.C.
Learn more about Kevin:
Connect on LinkedIn
See more of his work
Learn more about NDM at NaturalisticDecisionMaking.org.
Where to find the hosts:
Brian Moon
Brian’s website
Brian’s LinkedIn
Brian’s Twitter
Laura Militello
Laura’s website
Laura’s LinkedIn
Laura’s Twitter

May 3, 2023 • 48min
#43: Cognitive Task Analysis-Based Training with David Feldon
Today we welcome David Feldon, Professor of Instructional Technology & Learning Sciences, College of Education and Human Services, Utah State University. Dr. Feldon’s research examines two lines of inquiry that are distinct but mutually supportive.
The first characterizes the cognitive components of expertise as they contribute to effective and innovative problem solving, as well as how they affect the quality of instruction that experts can provide.
The second examines the development of research skills within STEM disciplines as a function of instruction and other educational support mechanisms. He also conducts some research into technology-facilitated instructional approaches and research methods for examining them.
David’s work currently focuses on:
Cognitive load and motivation with brain imaging and eye tracking
Longitudinal study of PhD students in the biological sciences
Simulation based assessments of open-ended problem solving.
Learn more about David:
Connect on LinkedIn
See more of his work
Learn more about NDM at NaturalisticDecisionMaking.org.
Where to find the hosts:
Brian Moon
Brian’s website
Brian’s LinkedIn
Brian’s Twitter
Laura Militello
Laura’s website
Laura’s LinkedIn
Laura’s Twitter

Mar 21, 2023 • 52min
#42: Managing Change and Crises with Thomas Lahnthaler
Today we welcome Thomas Lahnthaler.
Thomas is an experienced crisis manager, facilitator, and author. For the past two decades, he has worked in over 30 countries, started two companies, and published his first book last summer, called Navigating Beyond Crisis.
Thomas currently manages the leadership development of a global holding company. He advises companies globally on leadership and learning and has turned his passion for human dynamics into his profession, specializing in designing and facilitating experiential learning arenas. He constantly strives to get new perspectives, and his approach is heavily influenced by his work and time spent with indigenous peoples.
He currently resides in Norway, where he gets inspired by his two most excellent teachers, as he calls them, his children.
Learn more about Thomas:
Connect on LinkedIn
Learn about Navigating Beyond Crisis
Learn more about NDM at NaturalisticDecisionMaking.org.
Where to find the hosts:
Brian Moon
Brian’s website
Brian’s LinkedIn
Brian’s Twitter
Laura Militello
Laura’s website
Laura’s LinkedIn
Laura’s Twitter

8 snips
Feb 7, 2023 • 45min
#41: The Limits and Possibilities of AI-Human Teams with Nancy Cooke
Nancy Cooke is a professor in Human Systems Engineering at the Polytechnic School, one of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University. She also directs Global Security Initiative’s Center for Human, AI, and Robot Teaming. Professor Cooke’s research interests include the study of individual and team cognition. Applied research topics include:
· the development of cognitive and knowledge engineering methodologies,
· sensor operator threat detection,
· cyber and intelligence analysis,
· remotely-piloted aircraft systems,
· human-robot teaming,
· healthcare systems, and
· emergency response systems.
She specializes in the development, application, and evaluation of methodologies to elicit and assess individual and team cognition. Dr. Cooke is a Past President of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society and the past chair of the Board on Human Systems Integration at the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine. She also recently chaired a study panel for the National Academies on the Enhancing the Effectiveness of Team Science. Dr. Cooke was a member of the US Air Force Scientific Advisory board from 2008-2012, and in 2014, she received the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society’s Arnold M. Small President’s Distinguished Service Award.
Learn more about her work at the links below:
ASU Human Systems Engineering Program
ASU Global Security Initiative CHART Program
CHART-ing the Future of Space Exploration
Learn more about NDM at NaturalisticDecisionMaking.org.
Where to find the hosts:
Brian Moon
Brian’s website
Brian’s LinkedIn
Brian’s Twitter
Laura Militello
Laura’s website
Laura’s LinkedIn
Laura’s Twitter

Jan 10, 2023 • 48min
#40: A New Initiative to Accelerate Workforce Training with Cognitive Task Analysis
This podcast episode is from an informational webinar hosted by the Naturalistic Decision Making Association on December 15th, 2022.
The webinar outlines the purpose and parameters of CTA in E/Affect, a challenge sponsored by Schmidt Futures to strengthen the case for Cognitive Task Analysis in the workplace.
What is Cognitive Task Analysis?
CTA is a toolkit used by psychologists, researchers, and instructional designers to understand how high-performing professionals make complex decisions.
The deep insights revealed through CTA can be used to design training programs that help novices achieve proficiency at a rapid pace.
Two-Stage Program
The grant will support a year-long project carried out in two stages.
Stage 1: CTA in Effect [DEADLINE: February 15th, 2023]
The first stage will solicit case studies of CTA's ROI and award $10,000 in total prize money to the most compelling submissions.
Stage 2: CTA in Affect [To take place throughout 2023]
The second stage will identify high-value areas of opportunity for CTA-based training programs.
An Invitation to Partners & Practitioners
Are you an experienced CTA practitioner?
Do you represent a company that would like to learn more about how CTA can preserve institutional knowledge and accelerate training?
If the answer to either question is yes, this podcast and the challenge it describes will be of value to you.
Learn more about Naturalistic Decision Making and Cognitive Task Analysis at NaturalisticDecisionMaking.org.
Thank you to Schmidt Futures for their generous sponsorship of this initiative and support of the NDMA and its mission.
Learn more about their work at SchmidtFutures.com.

Sep 22, 2022 • 1h 3min
REPLAY: Improving Health Informatics with Emily Patterson
Original Air Date: 8/27/2020
Show Description:
Today we welcome Emily Patterson. Emily is an associate professor in the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences at the Ohio State University. She is known for her application of naturalistic decision-making and cognitive engineering in health care. She did groundbreaking work in bar code medication administration when that technology was new, highlighting unintended consequences and making recommendations to improve the integration of new technologies into workflow. She co-authored the national standard for the summative usability testing methodology for ensuring the safety of electronic health records published by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
She has conducted applied research on clinical reminders, alarms, and transitions of care with a focus on improving the efficiency, usability, and accuracy of clinical documentation in electronic health records.
Where to find Emily:
The Ohio State University
Usability and User Experience in Health Care certificate program
NISTIR 7804: Technical Evaluation, Testing, and Validation of the Usability of Electronic Health Records
Macrocognition Metrics and Scenario: Design and Evaluation for Real-World Teams
Learn more about the NDM Association and register for our 2022 conference!
NaturalisticDecisionMaking.org
Where to find the hosts:
Brian Moon
Brian’s website
Brian’s LinkedIn
Brian’s Twitter
Laura Militello
Laura’s website
Laura’s LinkedIn
Laura’s Twitter

Sep 13, 2022 • 53min
#39: The Origins and Future of Tactical Decision Games (TDGs) with John Schmitt
Today we welcome John Schmitt to the podcast. John is a Senior Research Associate and the head of the ShadowBox Danger Division, which focuses on decision training for law enforcement, military, firefighting, and other high-risk domains. John is a former Marine Corps infantry officer. As a captain, he authored Warfighting, the manual that introduced the Corps’ new Maneuver Warfare operational doctrine and became the manifesto for the Marine Corps reforms of the 1990s. Warfighting has been reprinted commercially as a management guide for business leaders. He invented and popularized tactical decision games (TDGs), which have become a staple of Marine Corps training and have been exported to other domains. In 1994 he authored Mastering Tactics: A Tactical Decision Games Workbook. He has authored hundreds of TDGs. In 1999 he and Gary Klein developed the Recognitional Planning Model, a staff planning methodology based on Klein’s Recognition-primed decision (RPD) model. His hobbies include cycling, soccer, reading and arguing with Gary.
Learn more about John:
[WEBINAR] Tackling Wicked Problems: Tools and Takeaways from the field of NDM
ShadowBox Training
Learn more about NDM:
NaturalisticDecisionMaking.org
Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making
Where to find the hosts:
Brian Moon
Brian’s website
Brian’s LinkedIn
Brian’s Twitter
Laura Militello
Laura’s website
Laura’s LinkedIn
Laura’s Twitter

Aug 17, 2022 • 1h 10min
REPLAY: Magic Meets Macrocognition with Simon Henderson
Original Air 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 organizations. He is passionate about novel and pro-social applications of these fields.
Learn more about Simon’s work:
Deception by Design
Evaluation of the counter fake-news game, Harmony Square
Immersive theatre company, Punchdrunk
Learn more about the NDM Association and register for our 2022 conference!
NaturalisticDecisionMaking.org
Where to find the hosts:
Brian Moon
Brian’s website
Brian’s LinkedIn
Brian’s Twitter
Laura Militello
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]

Jul 1, 2022 • 48min
#38: Safety and Human Factors in Healthcare with Terry Fairbanks of MedStar Health
Rollin J. “Terry” Fairbanks, MD, MS, is the Vice President Quality and Safety at MedStar Health, Professor of Emergency Medicine at Georgetown University, and Founding Director of the National Center for Human Factors in Healthcare. A board-certified emergency physician, he practices in the MedStar Washington Hospital Center emergency department. Dr. Fairbanks also holds an academic appointment as adjunct associate professor of Industrial Systems Engineering at the University at Buffalo. He earned a bachelors degree in mathematics and physics and a masters degree in industrial systems engineering/human factors engineering, and after medical school he completed specialty training in emergency medicine, the HRET/NPSF Patient Safety Leadership Fellowship, and Wharton’s Physician Leadership Certificate Program at MedStar Health.
Trained in safety science prior to entering the medical field, Dr. Fairbanks is also a former paramedic, EMS medical director, and general aviation pilot, he is known for inspiring people to think differently about healthcare’s approach to quality, safety, and risk. As a member of the MedStar Health Leadership Team, he is responsible for system-wide quality and safety.
Dr. Fairbanks has contributed more than 120 publications to the healthcare quality and safety, human factors engineering and medical literature, and co-edited a book on cognitive systems engineering in healthcare. Dr. Fairbanks has served in many national and international roles, including the National Patient Safety Foundation Board of Advisors, the POLITICO Health IT Advisory Forum, AHRQ Patient Safety Network Technical Expert Advisory Panel, and he is a Health Research and Educational Trust (HRET) Senior Fellow. He has served in advisory roles for the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, Pew Charitable Trusts, the American Medical Association, and has held formal consultative roles with the US, Australian, British, and Spanish governments. In 2017, he was listed by Becker’s Hospital Review in Top 50 Experts Leading the Field of Patient Safety.
View Dr. Fairbanks' publications on PubMed
View Dr. Fairbanks’ Complete Bibliography
Learn more about NDM:
NaturalisticDecisionMaking.org
Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making
Where to find the hosts:
Brian Moon
Brian’s website
Brian’s LinkedIn
Brian’s Twitter
Laura Militello
Laura’s website
Laura’s LinkedIn
Laura’s Twitter

Jun 7, 2022 • 26min
Episode #37: Exploring NDM's History, Contributions, and Future with Dr. Gary Klein
This episode contains a keynote delivered by Gary Klein at the NDM Association's 2022 virtual Open House.
Dr. Klein pioneered the Naturalistic Decision Making movement in 1989.
He is well-known for his work in advancing a number of decision-making tools, methods, and cognitive models. These include the Recognition-Primed Decision (RPD) model, the Data/Frame model of sensemaking, the PreMortem method of risk assessment, techniques for Cognitive Task Analysis, and the ShadowBox training approach.
Klein is also the best-selling author of Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions, and four other books plus three co-edited volumes. His newest book, Snapshots of the Mind, is scheduled for publication in October.
Learn more and register for the 2022 NDM conference at naturalisticdecisionmaking.org.