Abstract
The colour and appearance of liquid laundry capsules have been implicated in the risk of attracting the attention of toddlers, and therefore contributing to poisoning incidents in the home by encouraging interaction. This research set out to explore if differences in colours and contrasting colour designs used in mono and multi-coloured capsules result in different levels of attractiveness. This was performed using two study settings: a laboratory setting (out of context), and by comparison, a more ecologically valid setting, mimicking the real-world. Capsule attractiveness to toddlers was measured by visual attention (measured through eye tracking) and grasping choice (measured as frequency of grasping in a behavioural task). Results from the research in the out of context setting showed statistically significant differences in visual attention and grasping choice between colours and contrasting designs. In the visual attention study a preference for multi-coloured capsules was shown. In the grasping choice study, in addition to multi-coloured, mono-coloured white or purple capsules were also preferred. In the more ecologically valid setting, there were no statistically significant differences in the visual attention or grasping choice between any of the capsules. These results were consistent with each other and in line with market data reflecting poisoning incident rates, which show no change with colour or contrasting colour design. We suggest that the results from out of context studies might not be a reliable indicator of real world behaviour. Given the importance of toddler home safety, using a methodology that is aligned with market numbers is crucial to develop countermeasures.
Highlights
Media news reports have highlighted safety concerns with colours used in liquid laundry capsules, implying that these are attractive to toddlers and may contribute to unintentional interaction that could lead to poisoning incidents in the home [1, 2]
This research set out to formally explore if differences in colours and contrasting colour designs used in mono and multi-coloured capsules result in different levels of attractiveness to toddlers and to explore the impact of a more ecologically valid study design
This research set out to formally explore if differences in colours and contrasting colour designs used in mono and multi-coloured liquid laundry capsules result in different levels of toddler attractiveness to better understand market accidentology data which, contrary to opinion expressed in the media [1, 2], show no relation between incident frequency rate and capsule colour [13]
Summary
Media news reports have highlighted safety concerns with colours used in liquid laundry capsules, implying that these are attractive to toddlers and may contribute to unintentional interaction that could lead to poisoning incidents in the home [1, 2]. Toddler interaction with liquid laundry capsules design of the study and helped to translate the results to the key findings and conclusions. The funder provided for the cost of materials/research facilities, recruitment costs, and paid a one-off consultancy fee to haystack NV to consult in the design and lead the execution of the study and data collection. Haystack NV employees were VM who led the execution and data collection of the study and JR who assisted in the design of the study
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