Excellence in Research: Human Visual Perception of Changes in Smoke and Flame Cues during Early Fire Development

这项研究的目的是了解人们如何看待不断增长的建筑火灾。火灾可以迅速从燃烧转变为大火，并威胁附近人员的安全。消防安全科学发现，预测火灾期间居住者的反应可以改善建筑设计和安全系统。确定是否存在真实的威胁是建筑物占用者在火灾期间采取行动的关键一步。过去的研究发现，火灾的最初迹象往往是模糊的，居住者经常调查来源。当发生火灾时，火灾线索可以被居住者看到，包括烟雾和火焰（取决于距离）。这项研究考察了人们是否能察觉到烟雾或火焰的变化，并利用它们来判断火灾的风险。更好地了解人们如何使用可见的火灾线索，以指导火灾紧急情况下的决策，可以改善生命安全系统的设计在buildings.This研究调查人类如何能够感知可见的火灾线索的变化，并将这些线索的发展火灾所带来的风险。以前的研究已经观察到，个人可以检测到可见的火灾线索的变化。个体是否使用火灾线索的变化率来判断构成的风险是未知的。使用决策任务，人类参与者对软件模拟的建筑火灾做出判断。通过改变火灾和建筑物的特征，这项研究调查了人们如何能够检测到火灾的变化，并利用这些信息来判断构成的风险。调查这种联系可以告知火灾线索的动态变化在多大程度上被居住者用来评估火灾的风险，并影响移动前的决策，这可以被纳入居住者行为的理论模型。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

The goal of this research is to understand how people perceive growing building fires. Fires can quickly transition from an ember to a blaze and threaten the safety of people nearby. Fire safety science has found that predicting how occupants respond during fires can improve building designs and safety systems. Identifying whether a real threat is present is a crucial step in building occupants taking action during a fire. Past studies observed that initial signs of a fire tend to be ambiguous, with occupants often investigating the source. When a fire is present, fire cues can be visible to the occupant, which include smoke and, depending on proximity, flames. This research examines whether individuals detect changes in smoke or flames and use them to judge the risk of the fire. Better understanding how people use visible fire cues to guide decision making during fire emergencies can improve life safety system design in buildings.This research investigates how well humans can perceive changes in visible fire cues and link these cues to the risk posed by the developing fire. Previous research has observed that individuals can detect changes in visible fire cues. Whether individuals use the rate of change in fire cues to judge posed risk is unknown. Using decision-making tasks, human participants make judgments about software-simulated building fires. By varying characteristics of the fires and buildings, this research investigates how well people can detect changes in fires and use this information to judge posed risk. Investigating this connection can inform the extent to which dynamic changes in fire cues are used by occupants to assess the posed risk of a fire and influence pre-movement decision making, which can be incorporated into theoretical models of occupant behavior.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.