Factors Affecting Emergency Evacuation: Floor Plan Cognition and Distance

People tend to take their spatial cognition and wayfinding behaviors for granted while moving about in familiar spaces or traversing regular routes (e.g., the way work). However, when an emergency occurs, even if people evacuate from a venue, they are still likely experience unexpected irreparable tragedy. This study conducted on-site experiment survey investigation. First-person view (FPV) floor plans were adopted develop relevant experiment, which was then used investigate relationship between behavior two influencing factors: plan distance. The t-tests accompanying questionnaire indicated that women (31%) better than men (5.3%) legend recognition (25.5%) outperform (7.1%) orientation; both findings achieved significance consistent with results of previous studies by neuroscientists. One-way ANOVA showed participants read difficult understand (not FPV), took considerably more time (153.82 s) reach closer staircase those who easy headed farther (113.40 s). understandability is key affecting public’s evacuation time.