Journal Articles
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/7915
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Item Comparative analysis of fire evacuation decision-making in immersive vs. non-immersive virtual reality environments(Elsevier B V, 2025-11-01) Zhang Y; Paes D; Feng Z; Scorgie D; He P; Lovreglio RUnderstanding emergency behavior is crucial for designing safer, resilient infrastructure. Immersive Virtual Reality (VR) realistically simulates emergencies but is resource-intensive, so systematic comparisons with non-immersive VR remain scarce. To address this gap, a multifactorial VR fire-evacuation experiment was conducted in which participants navigated a room with three exits under varied conditions (e.g., social influence, smoke presence, exit distance, exit familiarity). Results indicated no significant difference in overall decision-making between immersive and non-immersive VR. Nevertheless, immersion modulated key factors: in immersive VR, participants preferred nearer exits, were more susceptible to social influence, and experienced stronger effects of smoke and exit familiarity. Smoke also reduced the influence of exit distance. Personal factors (e.g., prior VR experience, age, gender) shaped perceptions and emotions; heightened negative emotions and perceived risk were associated with less rational (i.e., suboptimal) choices, particularly in immersive VR. These insights inform VR safety training, guiding simulations that more faithfully replicate real emergencies.Item A Virtual Reality Exit Choice Experiment to Assess the Impact of Social Influence and Fire Wardens in a Metro Station Evacuation(Springer Nature, 2025-05-19) Lu S; Rodriguez M; Feng Z; Paes D; Daemei AB; Vancetti R; Mander S; Mandal T; Rao KR; Lovreglio RAssessing evacuation time is a fundamental task in fire engineering. One of the key decisions made in evacuation dynamics is exit choice. In this work, we propose a new immersive virtual reality (VR) experiment to assess the effects of social influence and fire wardens’ instructions on the exit chosen. We also investigate if and how the perceived level of authority of the fire wardens (i.e., metro staff members or firefighters) can affect these decisions. The proposed immersive VR experiment includes 12 different scenarios during a fire evacuation in an underground metro station. A sample of 131 participants took part in the experiment, making 1048 choices. We estimate a discrete choice model to quantify if and how these factors affect the participants’ decisions. The results show that both instructions by fire wardens and social influence significantly affect exit choice and that the impact of fire wardens can change depending on their perceived level of authority.Item Video see-through augmented reality fire safety training: A comparison with virtual reality and video training(Elsevier B.V., 2024-12-10) Domgue K LI; Paes D; Feng Z; Mander S; Datoussaid S; Descamps T; Rahouti A; Lovreglio RSafety training is crucial to mitigate the risk of damage when a disaster occurs and can play a vital role in enhancing community response. Augmented Reality (AR) is an emerging technology for safety training that holds great pedagogical potential. This study aims to explore the effectiveness of AR training in terms of knowledge acquisition and retention, as well as self-efficacy enhancement. We developed a new video see-through AR training tool on a tablet to teach users about operating a fire extinguisher to put out a fire following the PASS procedure: Pull, Aim, Squeeze, and Sweep (PASS). The AR training tool was tested with 60 participants. Test results were systematically compared with findings from the literature investigating Virtual Reality (VR) and video-based safety training. The findings indicate that, directly after the training, AR outperformed traditional video training in terms of knowledge retention, long-term self-efficacy, and quality of instructions. However, the AR experience was not as effective as the VR experience in all these areas, but the AR group had a smaller decrease in knowledge over time. These findings suggest that the AR-based training approach offers benefits in long-term memory recall.Item Virtual reality for safety training: A systematic literature review and meta-analysis(Elsevier B.V., 2023-11-18) Scorgie D; Feng Z; Paes D; Parisi F; Yiu TW; Lovreglio RUnsafe behaviour in the workplace and disaster events can lead to serious harm and damage. Safety training has been a widely studied topic over the past two decades. Its primary aim is to save lives and minimise damage but requires regular refreshers. New digital technologies are helping in the process of enhancing safety training for better knowledge acquisition and retention. Among them, Virtual Reality (VR) can provide an engaging and exciting training experience, and there is a need to evaluate its application and effectiveness in safety training. This study aims to investigate VR safety training solutions applied to various industries (excluding medical and military applications), such as construction, fire, aviation, and mining. This was achieved by systematically reviewing 52 articles published between 2013 and 2021 to answer nine research questions. Fourteen domains were examined, with construction and fire safety training being the most prevalent since 2018. Findings reveal that only a small percentage (9.6 %) of the studies explicitly adopted theories while developing and testing VR applications. Additionally, this review highlights a critical need for long-term retention measurements, as only 36 % of studies provided such data. Finally, the two meta-analyses proposed in this work demonstrate that VR safety training outperforms traditional training in terms of knowledge acquisition and retention.Item Prototyping and testing a virtual reality counterterrorism serious game for active shooting(Elsevier B.V., 2022-09-28) Lovreglio R; Daphney-Chloe N; Rahouti A; Paes D; Feng Z; Shipman AAn active shooting emergency requires an effective strategy to increase the chances of survival of the attacked population. Educational environments are one of the most common locations of such events. To reduce the impact of these disasters, several emergency plans have been developed and put in place. Traditionally, these emergency plans are taught to occupants using non-interactive videos, drills, etc. However, these conventional methods present many limitations regarding trainees' knowledge acquisition, engagement and self-efficacy. To overcome them, this paper presents the prototype of an immersive Virtual Reality (VR) Serious Game (SG) for counterterrorism training. A user-centred evaluation of the proposed training SG was conducted with 32 participants. The experiment aimed to investigate the impact of the proposed tool on participants' knowledge regarding the safest actions to take in case of an active shooter attack. Participants' intrinsic motivation and self-efficacy levels were also assessed before and after the VR-based training. Findings indicate that participants’ knowledge, intrinsic motivation, and self-efficacy significantly increased immediately after the training.
