A crowd simulation model based on emotional cognition and contagion for emergency evacuation

Abstract

Emotion is a crucial factor which influences evacuation effects. However, the studies and quantitative analysis of evacuation emotions, including the emotion generated by external factors and internal personality or cognition levels, emotional contagion evolution, and the regulation mechanism of pedestrians to negative emotion, are still rare. In this paper, an evacuation model based on emotional cognition and contagion (EMECC) is presented. Firstly, individual’s emotion is generated and quantified based on Lazarus’s cognitive theory. Secondly, the emotional contagion between individuals is simulated by SIS (Susceptible Infected Susceptible) infectious disease model. Combining with cellular automata model, an emotion-driven moving rule is proposed to guide pedestrians move towards the directions with more positive individuals so that positive emotions can be spread effectively. Various experiments on model parameters, obstacles, and emotional contagion process are implemented to verify the effectiveness of the EMECC model. The simulation and experimental results show that emotional regulation mechanism can improve pedestrian’s decision-making ability and contagion of positive emotion can accelerate evacuation process. The EMECC model can simulate emotional changes dynamically and guide pedestrians efficiently and reasonably in emergency evacuation.