Perception, Trust, and Deepfakes

This unit explores how human perception, trust biases, and deception (including deepfakes) affect leadership decisions and information management. Building on foundational concepts from Unit 1, students investigate cognitive vulnerabilities, review real-world failures, and develop practical verification and refusal strategies to prepare for applied mitigation work in subsequent units.

Learning Objectives

• Analyze how trust biases and perceptual processes influence leaders’ interpretation of digital and interpersonal information in business management scenarios.
• Evaluate technical and human limitations of deepfake detection by comparing case studies of real-world detection failures and outlining the perceptual vulnerabilities they exploit.
• Apply verification protocols and refusal/escalation strategies to create an information-management response plan that mitigates deceptive communications while balancing stakeholder trust.
• Demonstrate experimental design and reporting by conducting a controlled classroom exercise that measures susceptibility to a selected deceptive stimulus and recommends evidence-based mitigation steps.