Chinese perceptions of implied hazard for signal words and surround shapes

Abstract

With the increase of international trade and communications, the issue-whether people in different cultures similarly interpret and understand the extent implied by signal words and their associated panels in warning design-is getting more and more interesting and important. Two experiments were conducted to collect data on perception of arousal strength of signal words and surround shapes of the Chinese population and to determine whether those findings for Chinese are validated for Americans. A total of 120 Chinese mainland subjects were tested in each of the experiments. In Experiment 1, 16 Chinese signal words were tested for their arousal strength. The results indicated that the words could imply different levels of hazard for the Chinese population. The comparative results revealed that both the Chinese and the Americans perceived similar levels of hazard in a signal word. In Experiment 2, six signal words and five different shapes were factorally combined to receive ratings on the perceived hazard level. Data indicated that both surround shapes and their interaction with signal words could connote different levels of hazard by the Chinese population. Their rank ordering of the shapes was found to be almost consistent with that of the Americans. Strong gender, age, and career effects were found in the two experiments. In general, there is only a minor difference in the perceived hazard for signal words and surround shapes between Chinese and American participants. However, it is suggested that care should be taken when the warning signs in facilities are designed for different populations.

Hazard levels of warning signal words modulate the inhibition of return effect: evidence from the event-related potential P300

“…The ten warning signal words used in this study were selected from a previous study (Yu et al 2004). Each word consisted of two Chinese characters.…”

“…In addition, the general dimension "arousal strength" has been proposed. In a recent study by Yu et al (2004), participants were required to rate the arousal level of 16 warning signal words. They found that the arousal level of these words could be divided into three hazard levels-high level, moderate level and low level.…”

Hazard Perception Based on Safety Words and Colors: An Indian Perspective

“…Yu, Chan and Salvendy reported an experiment with Chinese safety words for determining the level of stimulus generation among Chinese workers [12]. The results indicated that words could imply different levels of hazard.…”

“…The more a priori perception of hazard, the more likely people will look for and read warnings and comply by taking precautions [9]. Hazard rating among diverse populations depends on factors such as gender, age, social status, culture and country [9,10,11,12]. Safety concerns among individuals are universal but priority given to safety or safety-related decisionmaking may vary among or within countries.…”

“…Although ANSI has given guidelines about safety and OSHA has issued a standard for color-coding in industries, one should be careful about making broad generalizations about safety words and color perception [13,14,15]. In the context of safety and, even more specifically, hazard rating there is a need to understand hazard perception among different populations [11,12,13,15].…”