Effects Of The Accuracy Of Rainstorm Warning On People's Mood

Accurate rainstorm warning is an important precondition for people to prevent rainstorm disasters successfully.The previous studies have mainly focused on technical improvement of the accuracy of rainstorm forecast,and the influence of rainstorm on people's mood and behavior.So far,the effect of the accuracy of the rainstorm warning itself on people's emotion has not been assessed.To investigate the impact of the accuracy of rainstorm warning,three sets of experiments were conducted using customized videos with various scenarios to present accurate,false,omitted,delayed and advanced forecasts.In the behavioral experiment 1,the experimental conditions included accurate forecast of sunshine,accurate forecast of rainstorm,false forecast and omitted forecast,according to actual weather conditions and the accuracy of the forecast.In behavioral experiment 2,the experimental conditions included accurate,advanced and delayed forecasts,according to the time accuracy of rainstorm warning.Behavioral experiments 1 and 2 were conducted with the same group of participants.After each video,the participants were asked to fill out the questionnaires of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule(PANAS).The factors of indoor,outdoor and gender were included in analysis.The third experiment used near-infrared spectroscopy technology and the conditions were the same as the behavioral experiment 1.The changes of cerebral hemodynamics of oxyhemoglobin(oxy-Hb)and deoxyhemoglobin(deoxy-Hb)in the frontal and temporal lobes were recorded when the participants were watching the video.Our results are as follows.(1)When the weather forecasts were inaccurate,the rating of negative emotion of the participants was higher compare with that when the forecasts were accurate,regardless whether the result weather was sunny or rainstorm.Moreover,the concentrations of oxy-Hb in the dorsolateral prefrontal lobe,pars triangularis Broca's area and inferior prefrontal gyrus were significantly higher than that recorded when the forecasts were accurate.Therefore,it is important to technically improve the accuracy of rainstorm warning.(2)When the result weather was rainstorm,the rating of negative emotion was higher than that for sunshine,regardless the weather forecast was accurate or not.The concentrations of oxy-Hb in the frontal lobe and auditory area were significantly higher than that recorded when the result weather was sunny.Therefore,people prefer sunny to heavy rain.(3)When the result weather was rainstorm,a delayed forecast elicited a lower rating of negative emotion but higher rating of positive emotion than the advanced forecast did.This finding suggests that,with inaccurate forecasts,a delayed forecast is better than an advanced one as far as their impact on people's emotion is concerned.(4)When the result weather was sunny,the participants showed higher ratings of positive emotion when they were outdoors than indoors.When the result weather was heavy rain,especially when the heavy rain came earlier,the participants' negative emotion was higher when they were outdoors than indoors.These findings suggest that accuracy of rainstorm warnings is particularly important for the people who work outdoors.(5)When the rainstorm warning was accurate,the female participants showed significantly higher positive emotion than that of male participants.In conclusion,this study indicates that the accuracy of the rainstorm warning can profoundly affect people's mood.The results provide behavioral,psychological and neurobiological basis for a more rational early warning strategy.