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。火灾可以迅速从余烬转变为大火，并威胁到附近人员的安全。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。确定是否存在真正的威胁是建筑物居住者在火灾中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，居住者经常调查火灾的来源。当火灾发生时，居住者可以看到火灾线索，包括烟雾和火焰（取决于距离）。这项研究考察了人们是否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在火灾紧急情况下使用可见的火灾线索来指导决策，可以改善建筑物的生命安全系统设计。这项研究调查了人类如何很好地感知可见火灾线索的变化，并将这些线索与正在发生的火灾所带来的风险联系起来。先前的研究已经观察到，个体可以察觉到可见的火灾线索的变化。个人是否会利用这些线索的变化速率来判断构成的风险尚不清楚。通过决策任务，人类参与者可以对软件模拟的建筑火灾做出判断。通过火灾和建筑物的不同特征，这项研究调查了人们在多大程度上能够察觉到火灾的变化，并利用这些信息来判断构成的风险。调查这种联系可以了解居住者在多大程度上利用火灾线索的动态变化来评估火灾的潜在风险，并影响行动前的决策，这可以纳入居住者行为的理论模型。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.