Children tend to overestimate their physical abilities, and that tendency is related to risk for unintentional injury. This
study tested whether or not children estimate their physical ability differently when exposed to stimuli that were highly
visually salient due to fluorescent coloring. Sixty-nine 6-year-olds judged physical ability to complete laboratory-based
physical tasks. Half judged ability using tasks that were painted black; the other half judged the same tasks, but the stimuli
were striped black and fluorescent lime-green. Results suggest the two groups judged similarly, but children took longer to
judge perceptually ambiguous tasks when those tasks were visually salient. In other words, visual salience increased decision-making
time but not accuracy of judgment. These findings held true after controlling for demographic and temperament characteristics.
Keywords Risk-taking - Safety - Injury - Perception - Ability estimation - Fluorescence