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"Red Cars are Faster than Other Cars”: The Impact of Color on Children’s Estimation of Speed

Authors:
Jerome Dinet
Robin Vivian
Melanie Laurent
Mickael Smodis
Pierre Chevrier
Gaelle Nicolas

Keywords: Child; Pedestrian; Safety; Risk; Hazard

Abstract:
Estimation of speed is a major problem for young pedestrians to make the decision about when and where it is safe to cross the road. If some authors concentrated on visual exploration of young pedestrians during crossing activity, no studies have looked at the impact of vehicle color on the estimation of speed by children. Our experiment, conducted with 67 children aged 7, is aiming to investigate the impact of four environmental factors (type of object, speed of the objects, direction of the objects, color of the objects) on the estimation of the speed of moving objects by children. Results have mainly shown that, if direction of the objects has no impact of estimation of speed, red objects (cubes or cars) are significantly perceived as the fastest. Moreover, when the objects are cars, the number of "Red" responses is significantly superior than "Blue" responses. And finally, for our participants, red objects are significantly perceived as being faster, especially if they are cars and the speed of movement is fast. Rather than thinking of pedestrian safety as a body of knowledge to absorb, it is most useful to characterize it as a series of cognitive, perceptual, and motor skills that must be mastered to navigate in the traffic environment.

Pages: 26 to 32

Copyright: Copyright (c) IARIA, 2025

Publication date: April 6, 2025

Published in: conference

ISSN: 2308-4197

ISBN: 978-1-68558-260-9

Location: Valencia, Spain

Dates: from April 6, 2025 to April 10, 2025