An investigation into the influence of context effects on crowd exit selection under gender difference in indoor evacuation

Introduction Exit selection is crucial in indoor emergency evacuation. Domestic and foreign scholars have found that exit choice behavior is influenced by three factors: environmental factors, social interactions, and individual internal factors. Previous studies have shown that in addition to a single environmental factor affecting exit decisions, the influence of other available exit options in the context can ultimately lead to a reversal of exit decisions -The context effect. However, the impact of context effects on exit decisions in emergency situations has not been thoroughly explored. Therefore, this article identifies three basic independent variables: context effects, crowd flows, and gender differences, to study the exit decisions of different gender groups facing different crowd flows, as well as how context effects affect existing exit decisions.Methods In this paper, we used virtual reality technology to construct an indoor fire scene and designed a total of 15 virtual experiments with different crowd distribution or context effects. 131 participants were divided into two groups, male and female, and their exit decisions were observed under different crowd flows and contextual effects.Results The research results show that: 1) Both men and women have an innate preference to avoid crowded exits, and the proportion of following crowd evacuation significantly decreases when there are crowded crowds in the scene; 2) The exit decisions of female participants are more influenced by the crowd, while men tend to be more influenced by context effects when evacuating independently; 3) The context effects on exit decisions in emergency situations is statistically significant, and this performance is more significant in the male population. Further analysis reveals that similarity effects have a more significant impact on exit decisions than attraction effects.Discussions These findings provide deeper insights into the exit choice behavior of the population and may contribute to the design of safe exits in indoor buildings. In addition, this article emphasizes the importance of context effects and provides a foundation for future research.