Understanding human behaviour in fire : validation of the use of serious gaming for research into fire safety psychonomics

Full text contains chapter 5,6,8 and 9, the other chapters are under embargo. The primary aim of the project is the validation of a behavioural assessment and research tool. The tool is a serious game that makes use of an interactive, real-time, physics-based virtual environment with realistic 3D visuals and audio. Since in virtual environment test persons can be faced with the phenomenon fire in a safe way, without being exposed to the extreme health risk of a real fire, the use of serious gaming is likely to be a valuable supplement on the existing research methods. Currently, aspects like clue validation and way finding performance during evacuation are found to affect the probability of survival in case of fire substantially. More interesting to know is which clues trigger the best fire response performance and how these clues affect way finding performance during evacuation. It is expected that the behavioural assessment and research tool will generate the information that fire safety engineers and architects have need of for the design of a fire safe building that corresponds to the actual human behaviour in fires.