ABSTRACT
State Key Laboratory of Automobile Safety and Energy, Department of Industrial Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
Way-finding is an important activity in people's daily life. Currently, many studies have been conducted on human way-finding behaviors under normal conditions. However, few studies are reported on human way-finding behaviors under emergent conditions, such as terror attack, fire incidents and other natural incidents. The objective of this study is to compare the difference of human wayfinding behaviors under normal and fire emergency in virtual environment. Twenty participants were divided into two groups, and they were instructed to find an exit as soon as possible under normal and fire emergency in the same virtual hotel environment, respectively. Fire emergency was created by providing fire alarm, virtual fire and smoke, as well as smoke in real world. Results showed that participants had higher skin conductivity (SC) and heart rate (HR) in fire emergency than under normal condition during the process of way-finding. Participants need more escape time and travel longer distance in fire emergency than under normal condition. However, no significant difference was found in fixation duration between the two conditions. The present study provides more knowledge about the characteristic of human way-finding behaviors under emergent conditions, which is important for emergency management in public place and emergency evacuation in multi-agent simulations.
