Development of a technique for predicting the human response to an emergency situation

Lawson, Glyn; Sharples, Sarah; Clarke, David; Cobb, Sue

Abstract

This paper presents development work on a new approach for predicting the human response to an emergency situation. The study builds upon an initial investigation in which 20 participants were asked to predict what actions they would take in the event of a domestic fire [1]. The development work involved a retest with an additional 20 participants to investigate the reliability of the approach. Furthermore, the analysis procedure was improved such that the results represented more accurately those which could be obtained from practical application of the approach. As found in the initial investigation, the frequencies and sequences of the reported acts had significant relationships with a study of behavior in real fires [2] (Spearman’s rho: 0.323, N=55, p<0.05) and (Spearman’s rho: 0.340, N=37, p<0.05), respectively. Further development work is required, but the results indicate that the approach may have use for predicting human behavior in emergencies.

Citation

Lawson, G., Sharples, S., Clarke, D., & Cobb, S. Development of a technique for predicting the human response to an emergency situation. Presented at HCI International 2009

• Conference Name: HCI International 2009
• End Date: Jul 24, 2009
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2009
• Deposit Date: Feb 15, 2014
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 15, 2014
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1014596
• Publisher URL: http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-642-02728-4_3
• Additional Information: Published in: Harris, Don (ed.), Engineering psychology and cognitive ergonomics: 8th international conference, EPCE 2009, held as part of HCI International 2009, San Diego, CA, USA, July 19-24, 2009: proceedings. Berlin: Springer, c2009, Lecture notes in computer science, v. 5639, pp. 22-31. doi: 10.1007/978-3-642-02728-4_3; The final publication is available at link.springer.com.