The Impact of Emotional States on Construction Hazard Perception and Recognition Abilities

Workers’ hazard identification abilities have been recognized as one of the main factors to reduce the construction accidents. If the construction workers can identify various hazards in a timely and accurate manner during the construction process, it can effectively avoid the occurrence of safety accidents. Based upon the recent discovery that emotional state impacts hazard risk perception. The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between different emotions states and hazard identification abilities. To induce and measure the emotional state of 30 subjects, the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) pictures were used. Subjects were ask to complete safety risk assessment form to test the hazard identification abilities. The results uncovered that subjects were in a state of positive emotions such as forgetfulness and excitement, their accuracy in hazard identification will decrease, and the feedback time will be shorter, making it easier to ignore the dangers around them. The research findings are expected to help construction workers avoid unsafe behaviors due to mental reasons, thus enhancing the construction safety management.