Validating a low cost approach for predicting human responses to emergency situations

This paper presents a new approach for predicting human responses to emergency situations. The approach was developed for ergonomists working in emergency response preparedness. It involves presenting participants with a description of a hypothetical emergency scenario before asking them to describe how they would respond. This study builds upon previous investigations (Lawson et al., 2009a, 2009b; Lawson, 2011) which demonstrated significant associations between the predicted behaviour and that reported in a reference study of behaviour in real fires. This further work aimed to evaluate in greater detail the validity, reliability, resources and ethics of the approach. The results demonstrated significant relationships between the predicted behaviours and those from the reference study for both frequencies (rs = 0.572, N = 51, p < 0.001) and sequences (rs = 0.344, N = 40, p < 0.05) of behaviour. The approach is shown to be replicable and requires low resources. It does not present any notable risk of physical injury.

► We evaluated a new approach for predicting human behaviour in emergencies. ► Participants predicted their responses to a hypothetical emergency scenario. ► The results demonstrated significant correlations with a reference study. ► The approach requires low resources and presents low risk of physical injury.