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

这项研究的目标是了解人们如何看待日益增长的建筑火灾。大火可以迅速从余烬转变为大火，并威胁到附近人们的安全。消防安全科学发现，预测居住者在火灾中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期间采取行动的关键一步。过去的研究观察到，火灾的最初迹象往往是模棱两可的，居住者往往会调查火灾的来源。当发生火灾时，居住者可以看到火灾迹象，包括烟雾和火焰(取决于距离)。这项研究考察了个人是否检测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的火灾线索的变化，并将这些线索与不断发展的火灾构成的风险联系起来。之前的研究已经观察到，个体可以察觉到可见火线的变化。个人是否使用火灾线索的变化率来判断潜在的风险尚不清楚。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如何能够很好地检测火灾的变化并使用这些信息来判断潜在的风险。调查这一关联可以告知居住者在多大程度上使用火灾线索的动态变化来评估火灾的潜在风险并影响移动前的决策，这可以被纳入到居住者行为的理论模型中。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并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，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.