Safety or Security: What do we Notice?

As technology progresses, ever-increasing amounts of non-traditional devices will be connected to the Internet of Things (IoT). Devices in the IoT are capable of notifying their owners of their status in real time. Because of this, these notifications can carry tremendous import. While there is previous work detailing how humans handle security notifications, none has been done for notifications that deal with physical safety. Using an online study, this project explored this gap in research by examining the difference between the two. Despite most metrics being identical, participants consistently responded more correctly to safety notifications than security, suggesting that there is a higher level of comprehension or understanding present with safety versus computer security