TY  - JOUR
AU  - Bode, N. W. F.
AU  - Kemloh Wagoum, A. U.
AU  - Codling, E. A.
TI  - Human responses to multiple sources of directional information in virtual crowd evacuations
JO  - Interface
VL  - 11
IS  - 91
SN  - 1742-5662
CY  - London
PB  - The Royal Society
M1  - FZJ-2013-05636
SP  - 20130904
PY  - 2014
AB  - The evacuation of crowds from buildings or vehicles is one example thathighlights the importance of understanding how individual-level interactionsand decision-making combine and lead to the overall behaviour ofcrowds. In particular, to make evacuations safer, we need to understandhow individuals make movement decisions in crowds. Here, we present anevacuation experiment with over 500 participants testing individual behaviourin an interactive virtual environment. Participants had to choose between differentexit routes under the influence of three different types of directionalinformation: static information (signs), dynamic information (movement ofsimulated crowd) and memorized information, as well as the combined effectof these different sources of directional information. In contrast to signs,crowd movement and memorized information did not have a significanteffect on human exit route choice in isolation. However, when we combinedthe latter two treatments with additional directly conflicting sources of directionalinformation, for example signs, they showed a clear effect by reducingthe number of participants that followed the opposing directional information.This suggests that the signals participants observe more closely in isolation donot simply overrule alternative sources of directional information. Age andgender did not consistently explain differences in behaviour in our experiments.
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)16
UR  - <Go to ISI:>//WOS:000332384600010
C6  - pmid:24258157
DO  - DOI:10.1098/rsif.2013.0904
UR  - https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/139658
ER  -