On Not Putting the Cart Before the Horse: Design Enables the Prediction of Decisions about Movement in Buildings.
On Not Putting the Cart Before the Horse: Design Enables
the Prediction of Decisions about Movement in Buildings.
(78 K)
Groner, N. E.
NIST SP 1032; January 2005.
Workshop on Building Occupant Movement During Fire
Emergencies. Proceedings. Session 4.6. June 10-11,
2004, Gaithersburg, MD, Peacock, R. D.; Kuligowski, E.
D., Editor(s)(s), 96-98 pp, 2005.
Keywords:
occupants; people movement; emergencies; decision
making; human beings; human response; human behavior
Abstract:
Our principle obstacle to predicting building movement
is not movement, it is our ability to predict human
decision making about when, where and how to move during
building emergencies. However, we will be unable to
predict decision making as long as we fail to engineer
systems that provide the information that building
occupants need to make adaptive decisions. We need to
get on with the business of learning how to design these
systems that provide an informational cognitive task
environment without first waiting for the creation of
validated predictive models. In my view, we are in good
shape as regards the optimized physical movement of
people. This is not to say that models of physical
movement can't be improved. There is an acute need to
acquire better data to refine and validate these models.
However, we are in poor shape as regards modeling the
decision-making processes that determine when people
start to move, and how they decide by what means that
will try to reach what safe destination. I would like to
address the issue of how we might go about designing for
and modeling decision making.
Building and Fire Research Laboratory
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Gaithersburg, MD 20899