Conflicting interpretations of the symbols that are used to show airline passengers how to leave the aircraft in case of an emergency could create a “deadly scenario,” researchers say.1
In a report released in August by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Civil Aerospace Medical Institute (CAMI), FAA researchers examined wayfinding — the technology of communication about paths of travel by using “various active and passive2 modes of communication, such as lights, tactile objects, audio signals and computer-based technology to include virtual environments and augmented reality” — to identify the best ways to use internationally recognized symbols to indicate an escape path.
“This is proving to be difficult due to the meanings one culture places on certain symbols and how those differ among cultures,” the researchers said in the report, titled Wayfinding Technology and Its Application to Transport Category Passenger Airplanes….
