What is a Warning and When Will it Work?

Abstract

The term warning is applied to a variety of stimuli. From a safety standpoint, the most appropriate definition of warning ties it to any information that has the potential to change behavior and prevent accidents. The results of an extensive literature review suggest that warnings are unlikely to be effective unless a series of conditions are met. The failure of many intended warnings, including most on-product warning labels, to reduce accidents reflects the difficulty of overcoming the problems inherent in their use.

Curb Ramps: Cross Slope Conspicuity and the Prevention of Air Steps

“…The fact that many people failed to use curb ramps when entering the parking lot, also is consistent with other research indicating that many people do not act in a manner consistent with prescribed safe behavior, and reflect the reality that in most instances, pedestrians can safely step off a curb (e.g., Ayres, et al, 1989).…”

Warning Effect on Human Error Reduction

“…This hypothesis seems to be contradict the hypothesis proposed by Ayres et al (1989). Ayres et al proposed that only people who have LKC will be on the lookout for warnings.…”

“…More general discussion of warnings can be found in Ayres et al (1989). In this study, warnings are those that indicate possible unfavorable outcomes but do not include knowledge of how to perform 148 LIN AND SALVENDY FIGURE 2 A hypothesized conceptual model of error causation for select work situations.…”

Fifty Years of Warning Researchers

“…The majority of these have addressed presumed stages of processing (e.g., attention, comprehension, memory and motivation) that precede and potentially lead to compliance, using response measures such as rating scales, free recall and eye movements (Smith-Jackson & Wogalter, 2006). Certainly a written warning must to some extent be noticed, understood, and accepted in order to affect behavior, and the study of such processing may be useful for improving the ease and efficiency with which the warning is processed; at most, however, such processing stages constitute necessary but not sufficient conditions for behavior change and injury prevention (Ayres et al, 1989). As discussed elsewhere, these methods may be well suited to studying aspects of information processing and decision making (the precompliance stages) but appear to have very limited predictive validity for behavioral outcomes (e.g., Ayres et al, 1990;Frantz et al, 1993;Frantz et al, 2005;Ayres, 2006, in press), despite our collective reluctance to accept the frequent ineffectiveness of warnings (Ayres, 2004).…”