NTL Record

Title Acoustic signals for emergency evacuation.
Record ID 39368
Personal Name
Creator
Tobias, Jerry V.; Kidd, Gerald D.
Corporate Creator Civil Aeromedical Institute
Corporate
Contributor
United States. Office of Aviation Medicine
Publisher Civil Aerospace Medical Institute
Publication Date 19790100
Language English
Abstract Previous studies of binaural hearing suggested that speech sounds are less resistant to masking than are nonspeech sounds; experiments demonstrated that, when the nonspeech sounds are given a message to convey, they act more like speech. Earlier research showed that when subjects are deprived of vision, their walking behavior can be changed by presenting them with binaurally localizable signals, and so tests were run using speech recordings at the exits of the FAA Civil Aeromedical Institute's emergency evacuation simulator. The voices called out, Exit here, This way, and This way out, and people who had the opportunity to listen to them in an evacuation situation in which the illumination level was quite low and the subjects' vision was further obscured as if by smoke or dust performed better than people who did not hear the sounds.
Rosap ID dot:21156
Rosap URL https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/21156
TRT Terms Emergency exits; Evacuation; Auditory perception; Speech; Acoustic signal processing; Sound; Sound attenuation; Laboratory tests; Human subject testing
General Subjects Airplanes--Evacuation; Auditory perception--Testing; Speech perception--Testing; Oral communication; Auditory masking; Directional hearing; Attenuation (Physics); Sound--Experiments; Signals and signaling
Classification NTL - AVIATION - Aviation Safety/Airworthiness;
NTL - SAFETY AND SECURITY - Accidents;
NTL - SAFETY AND SECURITY - Aviation Safety/Airworthiness
Geographical
Coverage
United States
Report Number FAA-AM-79-5; DOT/FAA/AM-79/5
Resource type Tech Report
URL https://ntlrepository.blob.core.windows.net/lib/39000/39300/39368/AM79-05.pdf
Format PDF
Database NTL Digital Repository