Measuring human perceptions of developing room fires: The influence of situational and dispositional factors

Abstract

Studies of human behavior during emergencies have observed that when presented with situational cues that a hazard may be present, humans can fail to act on this information in a timely manner. Some models of human behavior in response to fire-related emergencies can explicitly account for potential delays in identifying and acting on the presented risk of a fire. Past research has indicated that variations in the disposition of individuals, such as psychological traits, can also influence responses to emergencies. The present study examines the extent to which responses to images of growing room fires are influenced by situational and dispositional factors. Participants judged whether words reflecting normalcy, risk, or protective action applied to images of developing room fires that varied in intensity. Psychophysical models of responses revealed that, as room fires developed, deviation from normalcy words were first reliably judged to apply, then risk, and finally protective action, in line with models of human evacuation behavior. Individual differences in specific dispositional traits influenced when participants identified that protective action applied to the growing fire. The evidence in the present study suggests that psychophysical and observational data can contribute to understanding human evacuation behavior during fire emergencies.