Crowd Behavior Simulation with Emotional Contagion in Unexpected Multi-hazard Situations

Abstract: In this paper we present a novel crowd simulation method by modeling the generation and contagion of panic emotion under multi-hazard circumstances. Specifically, we first classify hazards into different types (transient and persistent, concurrent and non-concurrent, static and dynamic ) based on their inherent characteristics. Then, we introduce the concept of perilous field for each hazard and further transform the critical level of the field to its invoked-panic emotion. After that, we propose an emotional contagion model to simulate the evolving process of panic emotion caused by multiple hazards in these situations. Finally, we introduce an Emotional Reciprocal Velocity Obstacles (ERVO) model to simulate the crowd behaviors by augmenting the traditional RVO model with emotional contagion, which combines the emotional impact and local avoidance together for the first time. Our experimental results show that this method can soundly generate realistic group behaviors as well as panic emotion dynamics in a crowd in multi-hazard environments.