Creating safe environments: optimal acoustic alarming of laypeople in fire prevention

Abstract

Hazards like fires occur regularly and can cost people’s lives. Optimal auditory alarm signals enable laypeople to recognise dangers and to protect themselves. Existing fire alarm sound research focuses on alarm sounds and voice alerts presented singularly. We explored a combination of both and aimed to identify alarm signals that work optimally in everyday life. Thus, we conducted two online experiments: In Study 1 (N = 379), we tested eight alarm sounds regarding their typicality, their familiarity, their arousal, their valence, and their dominance. Siren-like alarm sounds were the most effective. In Study 2 (N = 206), we combined the four most effective alarm sounds with a voice alert. The voice alert reinforced ambiguity reduction, action motivation, and action intention. Hence, we suggest using alarm sounds with siren-like patterns. They should be combined with a voice alert to foster a quick and specific (target task-oriented) reaction.

Practitioner summary: Warning laypeople is of great importance in time-critical hazards. In two remote testing studies (N_Total = 585), auditory alarm sounds with siren-like patterns resulted in the most distinct and emotional perception. Combining the alarm sound with a voice alert adds meaning to the alarm and fosters action intention.

Abbreviations: DIN: Deutsches Institut für Normung [German Institute for Standardization]; ISO: International Organization for Standardization; Mixed MANOVA: mixed measures multivariate analysis of variance; rmMANOVA: repeated measures multivariate analysis of variance.

Keywords:

• Alarm sound
• voice alert
• fire alarm
• emergency signals
• action motivation

Acknowledgements

We thank Melanie Göcke and Johanna Madry for their extensive support in conducting the study, Gerrit Hirschfeld for his very valuable statistical advice, and Celeste Brennecka for her very helpful comments on earlier versions of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

The authors Mira von der Linde, Christian Dobel, and Meinald T. Thielsch report there are no competing interests to declare. Chiara Herbster and Sebastian Festag both work for a company that manufactures (amongst other things) alarm systems. This is an advantage from a research point of view, as it has contributed extensive practical expertise to our studies. It should be emphasised that all this research was conducted as part of a nationally funded collaborative project involving actors from academia and practice and was funded mainly by these grants. Therefore, the conduct of the study, the collection of data, and the analyses were not directly commissioned by the employer of these two authors or influenced in any other way, nor were any direct remunerations received.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available in https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7701507.

Notes

1 No differences existed between participants in the with vs. without noise groups in terms of age, gender, or education level (all p > .1).

2 A total of 489 participants started the survey; 53 participants did not finish it and were, therefore, excluded from further analyses. All participants could hear the alarm sounds (indicated either by self-report or based on the results of a hearing test conducted at the beginning of the study). Another exclusion criterion was regular contact with alarm sounds in professional or voluntary work, as we aimed for a layperson sample (n = 44). If respondents did not understand the scales or just clicked through the study (as indicated by randomly given responses or by their comments in the end of the study, n = 8), they were also excluded from the final data analysis. Moreover, participants whose response times were not realistic (e.g. “speedsters”) were excluded from further analysis (n = 1). Finally, participants were only included if they gave their informed consent for data analysis at the beginning and at the end of the experiment (leading to n = 4 exclusions). Thus, 379 participants were included in the final analyses. No differences existed between them and excluded persons in terms of gender (p > .1) but did exist for age (p < .01) and education level (p < .05), perhaps because respondents had to have no regular contact with alarms to be included in the analysis.

3 A total of 310 participants started the survey. All participants passed the hearing test; none were excluded from the final data analysis based on this criterion. If participants had regular contact with alarm sounds in professional or voluntary work, they were excluded from further analysis (n = 23). A total of two participants were excluded because they reported not being able to answer the scales in a meaningful way. Further participants were excluded as they answered an attention check item incorrectly (n = 5). Participants were not included if they did not give their informed consent for data analysis at the beginning of the experiment or were under 18 years old (n = 12) or did not finish the study (n = 62). No differences existed between the included and the excluded participants in terms of age and gender (both p > .1) but did exist in terms of education level (p < .01). A reason for this difference might be due to the criterion of having no regular contact with alarms, which led to the exclusion of participants like nurses, who mostly do not possess an A-level qualification or a higher school leaving certificate.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research [under Grant numbers 13N15416 and 13N15419].