Change in Memory of Emergency Warnings - SAGE Journals

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 59th Annual Meeting - 2015

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Change in Memory of Emergency Warnings: The Case of An Averted Campus Shooting Daphne E. Whitmer, Michael E. Torres, & Valerie K. Sims University of Central Florida The goal of this research was to examine individuals’ proximity, gender, and memories about a specific situation in which emergency alerts were distributed. Students, faculty, and alumni were surveyed online one week after an averted campus shooting and again nine months later. Overall, this research suggests that closer living proximity to campus positively influences subscription to the emergency alert system and that women are more interested in safety than men. Data suggest that participants’ memory of their emotional reaction to the event and their memory of perceiving the alerts as serious warnings stayed approximately the same. Responses immediately after the crisis indicated that people were significantly more confident in their memory and remember feeling more worry over not receiving a warning than did the responses nine months later. The uniqueness of the situation may have influenced the lack of memory inaccuracies, due to the reduced negativity and affect towards the situation.

INTRODUCTION Studying the most effective ways to notify people of crises and disasters through emergency alerts is vital, as it can save countless lives (“Wireless Emergency Alerts”, 2014). One method to examine the effectiveness of emergency alerts is to study people’s memories of emergencies and their perceptions of the emergency warnings. A sense of false security can negatively impact one’s preparedness for an emergency, as well as one’s response to an emergency warning (Wang & Kapucu, 2008). It is crucial that people perceive emergency warnings as serious and that they accurately remember protective actions in a similarly dangerous situation.

Copyright 2015 Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. DOI 10.1177/1541931215591276

HISTORY OF EMERGENCIES AND MEMORY Fading Memory Traumatic emergency events, such as the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, have affected our country’s citizens. While people claim to remember these flashbulb memories, the memories seem to fade over time and details change (Hirst et al., 2009). Research of this particular event showed a considerable drop in memory accuracy and consistency one year after the incident (Hirst et al., 2009). Although the rate of forgetting seemed to decrease between one and three years after the attack, forgetting still happened. This rate of forgetting also is seen with autobiographical memories. Furthermore, emotional memories seem to be forgotten more quickly than objective or event memories. While forgetting occurs, it is not the same amount for everyone. In the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, those who lived closer to the event had better memory one and a half years later than those who did not (Neisser et al., 1996). The farther away people lived, the worse the memory for the event, on average. This was also shown for the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack (Hirst et al., 2009). However, this effect may be mediated by personal involvement. With the earthquake, those who lived far away but had friends or loved ones affected showed much better recall than others in their area

(Neisser et al., 1996). Those who simply saw the event on the news and were completely disconnected showed much worse recall. In summary, memories of traumatic emergency events tend to be influenced by time, emotion, and proximity. False Information An important factor that seems to come into play with memory recall is rehearsal (Neisser et al., 1996). Those who rehearsed the September 11, 2001 memory, for example, showed much better recall three years later than those who did not (Hirst et al., 2009). While their memories were improved, they were not always consistent with their initial reports. For instance, those who reported only a few days after the Loma Prieta earthquake and again a year and a half later fixed event mistakes that had occurred the first time (Neisser et al., 1996). Such individuals also would claim they always knew the correct information. However, there were large amounts of media coverage of both the September 11, 2001 attack and the Loma Prieta earthquake. Participants in both studies were exposed to many additional details afterwards that may have been incorporated into their personal history of the event (Hirst et al., 2009). The susceptibility to incorporate outside information into autobiographical memories was shown in a study involving the social media website Twitter (Fenn, Griffin, Uitvlugt, & Ravizza, 2014). In this study, participants were shown false information in Twitter news feeds. When the information conflicted with information received elsewhere, they were less confident about the Twitter information, but when false information was received in non-social-media presentations (control conditions) participants were more willing to incorporate this information into their autobiographical memory. This suggests the acquisition of false information may be dependent on the type of source from which it originates. Television news is a much more credible source than social media, and this type of visual information may be more easily incorporated into autobiographical memory (Fenn, Griffin, Uitvulugt, & Ravizza, 2014). This finding can explain the effects seen in recall surveys with both the Loma Prieta earthquake (Neisser

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 59th Annual Meeting - 2015

et al., 1996) and the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack (Hirst et al., 2009). Different types of events and information may influence memory and the rate of forgetting. Past research has shown that people forget negative memories more quickly than positive memories (Ritchie et al., 2006). Fading affect bias (FAB) is not as prominent when the memories are believed to be self-caused, are self-important, or are typical of a person’s life (Ritchie et al., 2006). However, with atypical events, such as a terrorist attack, earthquake, or school shooting, this bias is fairly strong. Curiously, rehearsing the event via discussing it with others strengthens FAB in the sense that people remember the positive aspects of the memory but forget negative affective emotions (Ritchie et al., 2006). In another study, participants remembered negative events in more detail than positive events, but they tended to have many more false memories with negative events (Porter, Taylor, & ten Brinke, 2008). This suggests autobiographical memory degrades over time with negative events. In relation to flashbulb memories, rehearsal affects memory as individuals “fill in” the details they have forgotten, perhaps due to the emotionality of the event, and may inevitably incorporate false information through other mediums (e.g., TV or social media). PAST EXPERIENCE WITH EMERGENCIES An area of research that has yet to be explored in the flashbulb events literature is memory of emergency warnings distributed during the event. For instance, it is critical to examine what shapes one’s perception and response to a warning in a crisis situation and how individuals remember the warnings for similar situations in the future. Past research is inconsistent in regard to how personal experience with an emergency affects the perceived seriousness and appropriate response to a warning message. Breznitz (1984) has investigated the “cry wolf” phenomenon in laboratory settings and found that individuals are less likely to respond appropriately to an emergency warning when they have had personal and repeated experience with the situation. Likewise, Riley (2014) has shown that more experience with an emergency leads to less perceived seriousness of the hazard. On the other hand, research has shown that someone with experience with emergencies is more likely to believe a similar warning (Ponting, 1974; Siegel, Shoaf, Afifi, & Bourque, 2003), which increases likelihood to respond to warnings (Burby & Wagner, 1996). It appears that past experience strengthens response to emergency warnings, but if one has experienced false alarms, this may negatively affect response to emergency warnings. CAMPUS EMERGENCY WARNINGS Our past research (Kopel, Sims, Chin 2014) asked participants to remember their perception of the campus emergency alert system before and after an averted crisis. The data suggested that participants took the alert system more seriously after the averted crisis. In addition, participants failed to admit mocking the alert system, but claimed others

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mocked it more than themselves. Individual difference factors such as gender, neuroticism, and locus of control predicted questioning campus safety. In a near-miss tornado situation (Sherman-Morris, 2010), most students (47.5%) and some faculty (31.4%) were first informed about the tornado from their campus emergency alert system, and most students (64.2%) and faculty (37.6%) were informed that classes were canceled from the alert system. Both groups were more likely to receive emergency alerts via text messages on their cell phones. Overall, this research suggests that cell phones are a common and important form of communication for campus emergencies. Similarly, Stephens, Ford, Barrett, and Mohetta (2014) suggested that text messaging is a crucial source of information in emergency situations. With cell phones becoming increasingly common and dependable, it is a logical medium through which to communicate emergencies. Recent research (Bean et al., 2015) has highlighted the need for more research in the field of emergency warnings, as well as the continued collaboration between researchers in instructional risk communication and public warning messages. GENDER DIFFERENCES Examining individual differences is an essential factor in studying perception and memory of emergency warnings. Gender differences seem to play a large role in the literature of risk perception. In general, women are more interested in safety than men (Kopel, Sims, & Chin, 2014; Weber, Blais, & Betz, 2002). Gustafsod (1998) offers some explanations for these gender differences that exist in risk perception. Gustafsod explains that men and women are exposed to different dangers and consequently, perceive and respond to them differently. Past experience of a particular risk may be different for a man than for a woman. One could argue that men and women have slightly different mental models of risks due to these past experiences and exposure, which affects their concern and response to emergencies. PRESENT STUDY The current study examines the averted crisis that took place at the University of Central Florida (UCF) on March 18, 2013. A student living in a dorm had guns, explosives, and a plan to shoot other students living in his dorm building. Fortunately, he was stopped when his roommate called the police and no attack was made. The UCF emergency alert system was used this day to inform students, faculty, and staff of the events that took place and that campus was closed until further notice. The current study uses classic Flashbulb memory methodology to examine participants’ memories a week after this event and then nine months later, specifically concerning the emergency warnings. This study aims to examine responses about the perception of the emergency alert system and the change in autobiographical information, specifically how individuals perceived the warnings about the averted shooting at the University of Central Florida. It was hypothesized that

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 59th Annual Meeting - 2015

memory would fade over time, and proximity would affect the initial perception of emergency alerts. This is in line with previous research that showed memory of negative events fade over time (Ritchie et al., 2006). With campus emergencies, students who live on-campus and receive alerts respond much more differently than those who live off-campus (McGee & Gow, 2012), and thus, it was hypothesized that close proximity would positively influence perception of the warnings. Additionally, it was hypothesized that women would be more concerned with safety and risks than men. METHOD Participants The original sample of 161 participants consisted of individuals who completed both the initial survey and the follow-up. All analyses that compared memory of the event from one week after the event to nine months later were compared at a listwise level, deleting participants in the analysis that did not respond to all questions. This was done in order to compare the same participants to each other. The final sample, for memory analysis, was composed of 107 total participants. This sample was composed of students, faculty, and alumni from UCF. Participants were recruited via email, Facebook, Tumblr, campus clubs, and word of mouth. Females constituted 80% of the sample size, while males were 20%. The mean age was 24.19 years old with a range of 18 to 56 years old. An initial screening showed that 73% of the sample heard about the event from the UCF emergency alert system. Of this sample, 73% were UCF students, 25% alumni, and 2% faculty. Materials The survey investigated how participants perceived the emergency warnings about the averted UCF campus shooting on March 18, 2013. Questions about the efficacy and manner in which they were informed of the UCF alert system were included, as well. Responses were scored on a 1 (“strongly agree”) to 5 (“strongly disagree”) scale, unless otherwise noted. Participants were not required to answer all questions. The questions on the initial survey were identical to the follow-up survey. This data was collected independently from the data reported in the Kopel, Sims, & Chin (2014) paper. Procedure The goal was to investigate individuals’ memories about how they perceived emergency warnings about a campus emergency and how this memory changed over time. In order to do this, IRB approval was granted within a week of the incident and students, faculty, and alumni were invited to answer a survey concerning the averted UCF campus-shooting incident of March 2013. The survey opened in Qualtrics on March 28, 2013 and closed April 1, 2013. Nine months after the initial survey, participants were invited to take a follow-up

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that opened in Qualtrics on January 22, 2014 and closed March 21, 2014. RESULTS Proximity to Campus A chi-square test of independence was conducted to examine the relationship between living proximity to campus and subscription to the emergency alert system. This analysis examined participants’ responses during the initial survey. All analyses were compared to an alpha level of .05. Seventeen percent of the sample lived on campus, 41% lived within 5 miles of campus, 12% lived between 6-10 miles of campus, 10% lived between 11-20 miles from campus, 10% lived 2150 miles from campus, 5% lived 50-100 miles from campus, and 5% lived over 100 miles away from campus. There was a significant difference in whether participants were subscribed to the UCF alert system X2 (6, N=160) = 26.20, p < .001 depending on proximity to campus. This was a yes or no question, with 1 indicating “yes” and 2 indicating “no.” In order to do a post-hoc analysis (Beasley & Schumacker, 1995; Garcia-Perez & Nunez-Anton, 2003), adjusted residuals were computed and squared for each cell within the chi-squared analysis. Analyses were compared to an alpha level of .003, due to a Bonferroni correction. Significance values were obtained using a function for chi-squared significance values in SPSS. Those who lived over 100 miles away from campus and were subscribed to the UCF emergency alert system were significantly different (adjusted residual = -4.11, p < .00001) than those who lived closer to campus. Similarly, those who lived over 100 miles away from campus and were not subscribed to the UCF emergency alert system were significantly different (adjusted residual = 4.11, p < .00001) than those who lived closer to campus (i.e., within 100 miles of campus). That is, those who lived farther away from campus were less likely to be subscribed to the system. A one-way ANOVA was conducted to examine the relationship between living proximity to campus and mocking the emergency alert system. There was a significant difference in whether participants reported mocking the UCF emergency alert F(6, 118) = 2.51, p=.03 and whether they had heard others mock the UCF emergency alert F(6, 118) = 2.20, p=.04, depending on proximity to campus. Post-hoc analyses indicated that these differences existed between those that live 6-10 miles from campus and those who live over 100 miles away. Those who live closer to campus (M=3.26, SD=1.45) were more likely to mock than those who lived farther away (M=2.00, SD=.11; p=.02), and those who lived closer (M=4.09, SD=1.11) were more likely to hear others mock the UCF emergency alert system more than those who lived farther away (M=3.00, SD=1.41; p=.04). Gender Differences An independent samples t-test was conducted to examine gender differences for responses to the initial survey. Women (M=4.34, SD=1.32) experienced more of an emotional experience to the event than men (M=3.41, SD=1.23), t(158)=3.77, p < .001. Additionally, women (M=4.44, SD=.83) were

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 59th Annual Meeting - 2015

more likely to feel unsettled if they did not receive a notification of a campus emergency than men (M=3.91, SD=1.11), t(117)= -2.55, p=.012. Change in Memory Paired sample t-tests were conducted to examine whether there was a difference in participants’ memory of how they perceived emergency warnings about the averted crisis and how confident they were in their memory. All analyses were compared to an alpha level of .05. Participants reported being more confident in their memory on the initial survey (M= 4.22, SD=.82) than on the follow-up (M=3.45, SD=.99), t(106)= -6.60, p < .001. Additionally, participants remembered keeping up with online news reports about the event on the day it took place more on the initial survey (M= 4.40, SD=.85) than on the follow-up (M=4.20, SD=.92), t(106)= -2.37, p=.02. In the same pattern, participants reported that they would feel unsettled if they had not received a notification about a campus emergency more in the initial survey (M= 4.66, SD=.66) than on the follow up (M=4.38, SD=.85), t(106)= -3.48, p=.001. Participants reported remembering hearing others mock the UCF emergency alert system more in the initial survey (M= 4.00, SD=1.26) than in the follow up (M=3.68, SD=1.27), t(106)= 2.79, p=.006 (see Figure 1). Interestingly, participants remembered their emotional reaction to the event at about the same level on the initial survey (M= 4.26, SD=1.55) and on the follow up (M= 4.14, SD=1.25), t(106)= -.90, p=.37. This question was on a 1 (“no emotional reaction”) to 7 (“strong emotional reaction”) scale. Additionally, they remembered perceiving the emergency alerts just as seriously on the initial survey (M= 4.03, SD=.99) as they did on the follow-up (M=4.05, SD=.96), t(106)= .188, p=.85. Much like our past research, participants under-reported mocking the emergency alert system and reported it in a similar manner on the initial survey (M= 2.87, SD=1.51) and on the follow-up (M=2.79, SD=1.38), t(106)= .656, p=.51 (see Figure 1).

LIMITATIONS A limitation to the current study is the unequal sample size of males and females. It may not be truly

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representative of a campus population at large. Additionally, there is only a small sample of faculty so it may not be representative of faculty responses and memory. Media intrusions and rate of rehearsal were not measured, although future research investigating similar questions should examine how these variables influence memory of near-crisis emergencies. Furthermore, using the same questions at both points of data collection may have triggered participants’ memory. DISCUSSION The goal of the current study was to examine how proximity to campus and how gender influence aspects of the emergency alert system such as subscription to the system and emotional reaction to an emergency. Secondly, this research aimed to examine the change in memory of how participants were informed about the averted crisis on campus. Proximity to campus was related to whether individuals were subscribed to the UCF emergency alert system. Those closer to campus were more interested in campus safety issues. The results suggest that living closer to campus also had an influence on personally mocking and hearing others mock the UCF emergency alert system. Research has shown emergency personnel, who are very close to emergency situations, often user humor in order to cope with stressful situations (Scott, 2007). Much like our past research, participants underreported their own mocking of the UCF emergency alert system, but reported that others mocked it more than themselves. Comparable with past research (Mackie, 1980), women reported a higher emotional response to the event than men. In addition, women showed more interest in safety than men, reporting that they would feel unsettled if they had not received a notification in the event of an emergency. Participants reported that they were more confident in their memory during the initial survey than on the follow-up, and this pattern emerged in several key questions. Participants remembered keeping up with online news about the event, remembered feeling more unsettled if they had not received a notification of an emergency, and remembered hearing people mock the alert system more during the initial survey than on the follow-up nine months later. These results suggest that memories regarding the perceived urgency and risk fades over time, especially how one sought out information, one’s desire to notified, as well as other people’s opinions of the emergency warning. There were no differences in terms of participants’ memory of their own emotional reaction to the event, their perceived seriousness of the emergency alerts, or their memory of individually mocking the emergency alert system. Although some memory of the event faded, memory of participants’ emotional reaction stayed the same. This might suggest that memory of one’s emotional state was due to the lack of arousal (Cahill & McGaugh, 1995) because the crisis never reached its true emergency state. Additionally, a less negative affective state may have influenced the lack of fading memory due to the fact that it was an averted crisis. This is coherent with the fading effect bias that posits that extremely

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 59th Annual Meeting - 2015

negative events fade more quickly in memory than positive events (Walker & Skowronski, 2009). Luckily, this event may not have been as extremely negative in memory as a true campus shooting would be. Participants remember thinking the emergency alerts were equally as serious on both surveys, which is an optimistic result. This situation could have been a major tragedy for the university, but fortunately, the crisis was averted and the emergency alert system was effective at communicating the risk of the crisis. This might explain why individuals remembered the same amount of mocking, or adding humor to the warnings, from the emergency alert system. This situation is one that is extremely rare to study because although several emergency alerts were sent out and a serious incident occurred, there was, in fact, no event of a campus shooting. This may have influenced the lack of memory inaccuracies due to the reduced negativity and affect towards the situation. In other words, the memories were less likely to fade because the event was arousing but it was not as negative as it could have been, fortunately. Overall, this research suggests that living proximity to campus positively influences subscription to the emergency alert system and that women are more interested in safety than men. In addition, this research suggests that although people are more confident in their memory closer to an event, their memory of their emotional reaction stays about the same when the crisis is moderately negative in affect. Individuals’ memories about taking a danger seriously stay the same and so do concerns about receiving warnings about danger. While adding humor to a situation is remembered at about the same rate, individuals’ memory of hearing others add humor to a negative situation fades. In sum, it appears that this research has added to the literature on the perception of emergency warnings in a unique situation, where an emergency and crisis was averted. Future research should continue to monitor perceptions of emergency alert systems on a regular basis to examine points in time, or crises, that impact the perception of an emergency alert system, as well as memory of emergencies. Designers and technical advisors should consider the advantages of tailoring the emergency warning messages based on one’s proximity to campus. As well, distributors of campus warnings should consider how warning messages could affect perception of related emergencies in the future. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We would like to thank the Applied Cognition and Technology (ACAT) lab, Jessica Siler, Elisabeth Niederman, and Steven Perkins for their help and efforts in all facets of data collection. REFERENCES Bean, H., Sutton, J., Liu, B. F., Madden, S., Wood, M. M., & Mileti, D. S. (2015). The study of mobile public warning messages: A research review and agenda. Review of Communication, 15(1), 60-80. Beasley, T. M., & Schumacker, R. E. (1995). Multiple regression approach to analyzing contingency tables: Post hoc and planned comparison procedures. The Journal of Experimental Education, 64(1), 79-93. Breznitz, S. (1984). Crying wolf: The psychology of false alarms. Hillsdale,

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