The Cry Wolf Effect and Weather‐Related Decision Making

Abstract

Despite improvements in forecasting extreme weather events, noncompliance with weather warnings among the public remains a problem. Although there are likely many reasons for noncompliance with weather warnings, one important factor might be people's past experiences with false alarms. The research presented here explores the role of false alarms in weather-related decision making. Over a series of trials, participants used an overnight low temperature forecast and advice from a decision aid to decide whether to apply salt treatment to a town's roads to prevent icy conditions or take the risk of withholding treatment, which resulted in a large penalty when freezing temperatures occurred. The decision aid gave treatment recommendations, some of which were false alarms, i.e., treatment was recommended but observed temperatures were above freezing. The rate at which the advice resulted in false alarms was manipulated between groups. Results suggest that very high and very low false alarm rates led to inferior decision making, but that lowering the false alarm rate slightly did not significantly affect compliance or decision quality. However, adding a probabilistic uncertainty estimate in the forecasts improved both compliance and decision quality. These findings carry implications about how weather warnings should be communicated to the public.

NOAA Radios and Neighbourhood Networks: Demographic Factors for Channel Preference for Hurricane Evacuation Information

“…Overload perception is when in a warning scenario, too much information is flowing simultaneously which may lead to irritation or confusion by the information consumers (formally known as the 'signal to noise' problem in perception and warning research). Hazard researchers have found that false alarms may alter decision-making, but that decisions are also contingent on the hazard scenario and the frequency of false warnings (Bliss, Dunn & Fuller, 1995;Dow & Cutter, 1998;LeClerc & Joslyn, 2015).…”

A Multiobjective Path-Planning Algorithm With Time Windows for Asset Routing in a Dynamic Weather-Impacted Environment

“…The recursion is initiated with the terminal condition J S (x S , t) = 0 ∀t and J S (x, t) = ∞ ∀x = x S . Our constraints include departing by a time u that satisfies (4), choosing an allowable plant configuration (5), and only traversing along feasible safe nodes and edges in the network (6), (7). When the costs are deterministic, (3) may be written in forward form as…”

“…When the task is one of trying to optimize multiple objectives, humans are notoriously poor at decision making, especially if the task is dynamic and has inherent uncertainty [4]- [7]. Consequently, decision support tools are needed to collaboratively optimize routes by evaluating and recommending multiple courses of action (COAs) from which a navy planner can select one.…”

The Importance of Communicating Uncertainties in Forecasts: Overestimating the Risks from Winter Storm Juno

“…They are “damned if they do and damned if they don't.” If they take strong action based on the worst‐case scenario, perhaps based on a feeling that they are protecting the public, they will be criticized if things turn out to be much less serious. Furthermore, if this happens repeatedly, they are subject to the “cry wolf” syndrome, in which the public will no longer believe what they say in these kinds of circumstances . On the other hand, if they don't give sufficient attention to the worst‐case scenario, they will be severely criticized if it comes to pass.…”

“…Furthermore, if this happens repeatedly, they are subject to the "cry wolf" syndrome, in which the public will no longer believe what they say in these kinds of circumstances. (26) On the other hand, if they don't give sufficient attention to the worst-case scenario, they will be severely criticized if it comes to pass.…”