Spatial knowledge and firefighters’ wayfinding performance: A virtual reality search and rescue experiment
Spatial knowledge and firefighters’ wayfinding performance: A virtual reality search and rescue experiment
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DOI：
10.1016/j.ssci.2021.105231
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发表时间：
2021-03
期刊：
影响因子：
6.1
通讯作者：
Yangming Shi;John Kang;Pengxiang Xia;Oshin Tyagi;Ranjana K. Mehta;Jing Du
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Yangming Shi;John Kang;Pengxiang Xia;Oshin Tyagi;Ranjana K. Mehta;Jing Du
消防员往往需要在短时间内消化复杂的空间信息进行搜救。以前的寻路文献记录了关于普通人群在正常情况下如何利用不同形式的空间信息，包括地标、路线和调查(地图)来发展空间知识和指导认路的证据。然而，当时间有限，消防员没有特权以进化的方式发展完整的空间知识时，人们对任意给定的空间信息如何影响消防员的寻路行为和表现知之甚少。为了缩小知识差距，我们使用虚拟现实(VR)与消防员(n=440)进行了一次寻路实验。在实验中，消防员被要求在模拟的办公室迷宫中找到三名遇难者。每位消防员在本研究中随机经历了四种实验条件，包括控制条件、地标条件、路线条件和测量(MAP)条件。对于每个实验条件，消防员有3分钟的时间记住虚拟办公室迷宫的不同布局，使用包括地标、路线和测量(地图)在内的三种空间信息之一，然后前往虚拟办公室迷宫寻找遇难者。找到的遇难者数量、时间和导航模式被用来评估消防员的寻路性能。结果表明，路线和勘测空间信息在帮助消防员记忆布局方面更有效，导致更好的寻路性能。我们还发现，勘测信息虽然提供了更完整的布局信息，但也给消防员带来了负担，他们必须在有限的时间内规划路线。由于调查信息可能会导致不同的路径规划策略，所以调查信息并没有像以往研究所建议的那样产生比路线信息更好的性能。这项研究有助于解释不同形式的空间信息与消防员的认路能力之间的关系。这些发现将帮助专业人士为消防员设计更好的培训方案和技术。
Firefighters often need to digest complex spatial information within a short period of time for search and rescue. Previous wayfinding literature has documented evidence about how the general population in normal situations leverage different forms of spatial information, including landmarks, routes and survey (maps), to develop spatial knowledge and guide wayfinding. However, little is known about how the arbitrarily given spatial information affects firefighter wayfinding behavior and performance when the time is limited and there is no privilege for them to develop complete spatial knowledge in an evolving manner. To narrow the knowledge gap, we conducted a wayfinding experiment with firefighters (n = 40) using Virtual Reality (VR). In the experiment, firefighters were required to find three victims in a simulated office maze. Each firefighter randomly experienced four experimental conditions in this study including control condition, landmark condition, route condition, and survey (map) condition. For each experimental condition, firefighters had 3 min to memorize the different layouts of the virtual office mazes using one of three spatial information including landmarks, routes, and survey (map), and then went to the virtual office maze to find the victims. The number of victims found, time, and navigation patterns were used to evaluate firefighters’ wayfinding performance. The results indicated that the route and survey spatial information was more efficient in facilitating firefighter to memorize the layout, leading to a better wayfinding performance. We also found that although the survey information provided more complete information about the layout, it also burdened firefighters in a way that they had to plan the path with limited time. Since survey information may induce different path planning strategies, survey information did not result in a better performance than the route information as suggested by previous studies. This research helps explain the relationship between different forms of spatial information and the wayfinding performance of firefighters. The findings will help professionals design better training protocols and technologies for firefighters.