How simple hypothetical-choice experiments can be utilized to learn humans' navigational escape decisions in emergencies

Abstract

How humans resolve non-trivial tradeoffs in their navigational choices between the social interactions (e.g., the presence and movements of others) and the physical factors (e.g., spatial distances, route visibility) when escaping from threats in crowded confined spaces? The answer to this question has major implications for the planning of evacuations and the safety of mass gatherings as well as the design of built environments. Due to the challenges of collecting behavioral data from naturally-occurring evacuation settings, laboratory-based virtual-evacuation experiments have been practiced in a number of studies. This class of experiments faces the traditional question of contextual bias ..