Exploring Hazard Perception and Compliance: A Pilot Study on the Influence of Safety Signs in a Non-conspicuous Hazard Situation

This pilot study aimed to evaluate the impact of conventional ISO type safety signs on enhancing hazard-risk behaviours and prompting behavioural compliance, in a non-conspicuous hazardous situation (i.e., a Conveyor belt hazard, void of any visual and/or auditory cues). Using a work-related (i.e., a stereotypical, yet realistic factory setting) virtual reality-based experimental set-up, and a sample of twelve workers (20–65 yrs), the study´s objectives were to assess to what extent the printed static safety signs were effective in prompting compliant behaviours in the given situation, as well as to collect the participants’ hazard-risk perceptions regarding such a context. The study, therefore, addresses topics under the Virtual-reality domain such as: simulator sickness; level of presence; overall virtual environment design; as well as hazard-risk and safety sign perception. Results reveal that in this non-conspicuous hazardous situation, the participants adequately perceived the hazard and adopted safe behaviours, despite being unaware of the presence of such safety signs in the environment.