A ZOMBIE study into evacuating buildings has been published by scientists at Essex University.

Academics from the mathematical sciences department used data from a computer game at the Science Museum’s ZombieLab event earlier this year to research human crowd behaviour.

The research, published in the journal Animal Behaviour, revealed how stress can affect decision making and crowd behaviour during evacuations.

People making decisions in stressful situations made worse evacuation choices and were less likely to review bad decisions, the research found, and it is hoped the findings will help design safer evacuation routes in buildings and public places.