Human interaction with virtual reality: investigating pre-evacuation efficiency in building emergency (original) (raw)
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Procedia Manufacturing, 2015
Several research studies have shown that training using simulations is a good strategy to promote the performance of students and work teams . The effectiveness of the training, in terms of transfer, using simulations, has been proved for pilots (flight simulators) and surgeons (virtual reality systems) . These simulations, based in expensive technology solutions, are very difficult to be implemented in companies, for training workers for emergency fire evacuation. In everyday situations, particularly in the emergency associated with rapid evacuation of people in buildings, is required by law, the development of fire drills. The main objective of these methods is to train the workers to peacefully follow a previously taught routine. However, in a real emergency, workers can be under a high stress situation and may not follow the previously trained behavior. This article will reflect on emergency evacuation in buildings and how the effectiveness of the training process can be increased. Thus, a theoretical approach of emergency evacuation will be presented and a discussion of VR as the usage for training in these situations.
International Journal of Human-computer Studies / International Journal of Man-machine Studies, 2010
Human behaviour in fires is mainly studied by incident evaluations and real-life experiments, such as unannounced evacuation drills. The possibilities of virtual reality for studying human behaviour in fires are so far hardly adopted by researchers. Nevertheless, the application of a behavioural assessment and research tool (BART) in virtual reality is expected to be a valuable supplement on the existing research methods. The innovative instrument will be validated by comparing the results of experiments in a virtual environment with results of the same experiments in real life. In this paper some results of case studies on evacuation behaviour in a real hotel building, as well as in a virtual hotel building in BART are given. The participants' route choice, pre-movement time, pre-evacuation behaviour, movement time and evacuation behaviour are part of the analysis in the paper.
International Journal of Safety and Security Engineering, 2022
Nowadays, the existing evacuation method for emergencies in a building still relies on exit signs and evacuation maps, which usually take longer for the victim to read thoroughly in the case of panic. Therefore, Dynamic Evacuation Routing System (DERS) is developed as a guiding evacuation system that comes in lines, and the lights are programmable to show the safest and shortest path to escape. We developed DERS with Virtual Reality (VR) as a training system tool. Three variables will be tested, namely DERS implementation, type of building, and the starting floor level. This quantification combined three methods: Presence Questionnaire (PQ), System Usability Scale (SUS), and usability matrix. It was suggested that DERS implementation was able to improve all results collectively with different building and starting floor levels as other significant factors affecting the results and the quality of the simulation were good for immersion level (3.90 out of 5.00) and decent for usability level (71.72 out of 100). Therefore, DERS implementation could improve evacuation effectiveness in the case of an emergency, and VR simulation has been successfully utilized as a medium for evaluating new evacuation systems using DERS.
Computers & Education
An appropriate and safe behavior for exiting a facility is key to reducing injuries and increasing survival when facing an emergency evacuation in a building. Knowledge on the best evacuation practice is commonly delivered by traditional training approaches such as videos, posters, or evacuation drills, but they may become ineffective in terms of knowledge acquisition and retention. Serious games (SGs) are an innovative approach devoted to training and educating people in a gaming environment. Recently, increasing attention has been paid to immersive virtual reality (IVR)-based SGs for evacuation knowledge delivery and behavior assessment because they are highly engaging and promote greater cognitive learning. This paper aims to understand the development and implementation of IVR SGs in the context of building evacuation training and research, applied to various indoor emergencies such as fire and earthquake. Thus, a conceptual framework for effective design and implementation through the systematic literature review method was developed. As a result, this framework integrates critical aspects and provides connections between them, including pedagogical and behavioral impacts, gaming environment development, and outcome and participation experience measures.
JAPAN ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW, 2023
Fire alarms play a significant role in situational awareness and decision-making pertaining to evacuation for fire evacuation safety in office buildings that include small rooms, where many occupants cannot directly see fire or smoke. We conducted experiments using a mobile VR head-mounted display to examine how individuals perceive the sound of fire alarms in rooms of different sizes. Comparing the cases of hearing the alarm sound in the large room and the small room, approximately 70% of the test participants answered that they wanted to check the situation more when they were in the small room because they could not understand the surrounding situation. Regardless of the room size, when test participants hear the early warning voice, approximately 40% of them would check the neighborhood and evacuate, and when they hear the evacuation directive voice alarm, more than 90% will take the same action. We also discussed the awareness process of occupants considering this result and the configuration of a smoke detection system in Japan. Approximately half of the people in the large room take checking actions; however, the remaining people do not take specific confirmation actions for about 1–3 min and do not check for fires or evacuate.
Advanced Engineering Informatics, 2020
Enhancing the earthquake behavioral responses and post-earthquake evacuation preparedness of building occupants is beneficial to increasing their chances of survival and reducing casualties after the main shock of an earthquake. Traditionally, training approaches such as seminars, posters, videos or drills are applied to enhance preparedness. However, they are not highly engaging and have limited sensory capabilities to mimic life-threatening scenarios for the purpose of training potential participants. Immersive Virtual Reality (IVR) and Serious Games (SG) as innovative digital technologies can be used to create training tools to overcome these limitations. In this study, we propose an IVR SG-based training system to improve earthquake behavioral responses and post-earthquake evacuation preparedness. Auckland City Hospital was chosen as a case study to test our IVR SG training system. A set of learning outcomes based on best evacuation practice has been identified and embedded into several training scenarios of the IVR SG. Hospital staff (healthcare and administrative professionals) and visitors were recruited as participants to be exposed to these training scenarios. Participants' preparedness has been measured along two dimensions: 1) Knowledge about best evacuation practice; 2) Self-efficacy in dealing with earthquake emergencies. Assessment results showed that there was a significant knowledge and self-efficacy increase after the training. And participants acknowledged that it was easy and engaging to learn best evacuation practice knowledge through the IVR SG training system.
Ergonomics, 2003
This paper presents an experimental study of participants' response to the sudden appearance of a fire emergency in a virtual environment (VE) and of the adaptivity of their response pattern. A VE has been built in which participants meet two situations: first an explorative navigation and afterwards a hurried escape from the unexpected outbreak of fire. Fire intensity and participants' distance from the exit at the outbreak of fire have been varied as well, to create different degrees of danger and different degrees of difficulty in the task of leaving the premises. Participants' action has been collected automatically for quantitative analysis by registering each individual activation of the interaction devices (a triple button joystick). In addition, the movements in both virtual and real environment of additional groups of participants have been videorecorded for qualitative analysis. Results show that the appearance of the fire emergency triggers important changes in the way people move in the VE, and that such changes are all adaptive responses to an emergency situation. In conclusion, people show recognition of a dangerous situation in a VE and readily produce adaptive responses, making the VE suitable for emergency simulations and for use as an effective training tool.
Spatial Cognition & Computation, 2021
During evacuation, individual navigation behavior is often dictated by the legibility of evacuation signs and the environmental setting itself. People tend to follow previously-used and known routes (to retrace) rather than follow evacuation signage. This has proven undesirable, even fatal, in emergencies and such behavior calls for a better understanding of the influencing factors. This contribution consists of a virtual reality experiment in which 72 participants evacuated from a hotel building in which the spatial configurations were altered. The tendency to retrace diminished when the evacuation route led through a wider, straight corridor, suggesting that the building's spatial configuration has an important influence on retracing and should be more carefully considered in the design of buildings in and agent-based simulations.
Virtual Reality for Fire Evacuation Research
Virtual reality (VR) has become a popular approach to study human behavior in fire. The present position paper analyses Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) of VR as a research tool for human behavior in fire. Virtual environments provide a maximum of experimental control, are easy to replicate, have relatively high ecological validity, and allow safe study of occupant behavior in scenarios that otherwise would be too dangerous. Lower ecological validity compared to field studies, ergonomic aspects, and technical limitations are the main weaknesses of the method. Increasingly realistic simulations and other technological advances provide new opportunities for this relatively young method. In this position paper, we argue that VR is a promising complementary laboratory tool in the quest to understand human behavior in fire and to improve fire safety.