Special issue on warnings: Advances in delivery, application, and methods

This special issue of Applied Ergonomics concerns the topic of warnings, safety communications designed to decrease harm to people and property. The fi eld has evolved over time, and with it there has been advancement in knowledge and application. The current special issue contains 14 articles that re fl ect three distinguishable areas within the warnings literature where such changes are taking place in the laboratories and workplaces of our international colleagues: (1) multimodality of warning delivery, (2) emerging application areas, and (3) new methodology. This special issue brings together a set of studies investigating various factors that might impact safety behavior in diverse settings and domains where warnings are likely to be encountered. It is our hope that the special issue will motivate to development and exploration of new ideas regarding warning design and their use in a variety of applications that improve safety. Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd and The Ergonomics Society. All rights reserved. As the fi eld of human factors/ergonomics (hf/e) has matured over the last several decades, a large body of research has been published on warnings. In general, warnings are safety communications designed to decrease harm to people and property. The topic of warnings has been explored in hundreds of research articles written in various journals as well as several comprehensive books (e.g., Lehto and Miller, 1986; Edworthy and Adams, 1996; Rogers et al., 2000; Laughery and Wogalter, 2006; Wogalter, 2006a). This special issue of Applied Ergonomics concerns the topic of warnings. The fi eld has evolved over time, and with it there has been advancement in knowledge and application. The current special issue re fl ects three distinguishable areas within the warnings literature where such changes are taking place in the laboratories and work- places of our international colleagues: (1) multimodality of warning delivery, (2) emerging application areas, and (3) new methodology. To assist in organizing the fourteen articles that comprise this special issue, we used the most recent iteration of the communication-human information processing (C-HIP) model (see Wogalter, 2006b). The C-HIP model depicted in Fig. 1 has two main sections each with several component stages. The fi rst section of the framework uses a communications framework to focus on a warning message being sent from one entity (i.e., the source) to another (i.e., the receiver) through some channel(s). The second section of the model focuses on the receiver and how people internally process information. This section interfaces with the fi rst through effective delivery of the warning to individuals who are the target audience. When warning information is delivered to the receiver, processing may be initiated, and if not blocked in some way, will continue across several stages: from attention switch, attention maintenance, comprehension and memory, beliefs and attitudes, motivation, and possibly ending in behavior. At fi rst glance the 14 articles included in this special issue may seem to address widely diverse topics. However, closer inspection reveals that each article fi ts into three broad topic areas as described above: (1) multimodality of warning delivery, (2) emerging appli- cation areas, and (3) new methodology. According to the C-HIP model, effective warnings must be delivered to the at-risk receiver via sensory channels.