Study on the Effect of Spatial Cognition Methods on Indoor Emergency Evacuation

In building fire emergencies,way-finding capabilities can affect people's evacuation efficiency and chances of survival.The purpose of this paper is to explore the influence of spatial cognitive methods on people's way-finding ability.In this research, we used VR technology to conduct experiments. In an immersive virtual environment,64 participants were asked to actively explore virtual malls by using YAH navigation and paper maps to find destinations and complete buying tasks,respectively.After that,32 participants needed to alienate the virtual mall with a time limit,while the else had to complete the same task without a time limit. In the experiment,the participants were exposed to the environment for the first time and were unfamiliar with it.The results showed that participants using paper maps walked longer(710 m vs 932 m) and took more time(666 s vs 922 s) to complete tasks of evacuating the mall than those who used YAH navigation maps.The findings also showed that participants spent more time(521 s vs 790 s)looking for exits under time constraints and found evacuation tasks more difficult.This article discusses the mechanisms of these findings.