Citation

Cohen HH, Cohen DM. J. Saf. Res. 1994; 25(1): 19-26.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1994, U.S. National Safety Council, Publisher Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Traditionally, studies assessing the "slipperiness" of walking surfaces have used various measurements of coefficient of friction. However, the psychophysical perception of "slipperiness" and the physical measurement of "friction" may be quite different. The purpose of this study was to determine the psychophysical elements of floor tile slipperiness. In the first experiment, subjects were tested with 23 floor tiles. The subjects were asked to compare a "standard" tile with a static coefficient of friction (COF) of .50 to the others varying along a measured continuum and report whether they thought each of the other tiles was more or less slippery. Contrary to the null hypothesis, the results showed a significant number of disagreements with the COF of certain tiles that tested at or near the range extremities. In the second experiment, subjects compared seven tiles and ranked them according to slipperiness using only visual, auditory, or tactile (sliding resistance) cues, individually. The results showed that tactile cues are the most sensitive to physical measurements of COF under the experimental conditions.