Evaluation of recognition performance of guidance direction present-ing by sequential emitting sound in evacuation guidance system

Providing guidance using light and sound source to support prompt evacuation during a disaster is an important issue. The final purpose of our research is to propose and develop an evacuation guidance system using a sound source that are emitted along a predetermined evacuation path sequentially. In this paper, we report the results of analysis and discussion about the identification performance of human being for the emitting sound source in several empirical conditions as the basic study of our research goal. We conducted two experiments under the conditions combining of these factors, in which subjects identified emitting sounds in two cases that the sound stimuli were emitting in straight lines and in right-angle lines. From the experimental results, it was shown that the accuracy rate of identification of the emitting sound was improved when the vocal phase was used as the sound source and when the emitting time interval was extended. The results about identification the sequence of sound also demonstrated that the performance became lower as the sound stimuli emitting farther from subjects in a straight line, and also the response time became longer in case that the sequence order from back to front than the other direction.