RESPONSE
TIME LABORATORY
What is involved when you respond to a sight or sound by moving your
finger to press a keyboard button? How
many neurons do you think the impulse has to pass through? List the events involved in as much detail as
you can.
There is a wide variety of web-based reaction time testers. Your job in this lab is to design an
experiment about what might affect reaction time, perform it with several
different reaction time testers, and evaluate them.
REACTION TIME TESTS:
React to a pitcher throwing a baseball
Exploratorium. Fastball Reaction time http://www.exploratorium.edu/baseball/reactiontime.html
React to the color change of a stoplight
1. Allen, J., 2002. The online reaction time test. http://www.getyourwebsitehere.com/jswb/rttest01.html
React to a change in background color
1. Chudler, E.H., 1995-2005. Colorful reaction time tester http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/java/backtime.html
2.
React to a change in screen text
Chudler, E.H., 1995-2005. Test your reaction time http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/java/reacttime.html
React to sight vs. sound
1. Pfaff, R. Sound
vs. Sight reflexes http://ww2.unime.it/dipart/i_fismed/wbt/mirror/ExplrSci/dswmedia/reflex.htm
2. Sciencenetlinks, Frog reaction time http://sciencenetlinks.com/interactives/zap.html
3. The web site at ProQuest Information and
Learning Company, 2005. Sight vs Sound Reflexes
http://www.explorelearning.com/index.cfm?method=cResource.dspResourcesForCourse&CourseID=323
will link to a program that allows you to measure reaction time. You can use the program for 5 minutes without
signing in, or you can follow the instructions your lab instructor will give
you to sign in as a member of my class.
PLEASE
NOTE if you are planning a research
project involving reaction time – we only have class access to this site
for 30 days. To use it for more than 5
minutes after the next month, you will have to ask another instructor
to sign on for the 30-day free trial. You might prefer to use a different
reaction time test for any projects.
Step 1 – play around
Try out a bunch of reaction time tests and make notes on what they do.
Do you get significantly different reaction time measurements when you take
different tests? Why might that be?
Now you’re ready to use them --
Develop a hypothesis. What do you think controls and affects
reaction time?
Check the literature. A good hypothesis should be informed by the
published results. Look at Kosinski, R.J., A literature
review on reaction time.http://biowww.clemson.edu/bpc/bp/Lab/110/reaction.htm
To see what’s known
about your hypothesis (hint – if it’s not in the index, use the ‘find’ function
and search the document for your chosen topic).
Refine the hypothesis. Will
you change your hypothesis based on the literature?
Design the experiment. How will
you perform the experiment? (what stimulus, how many
trials, how many subjects) Please
design an experiment that you can perform in about 10-15 minutes. Before you do the experiment, create a data
table to enter your data in and have it approved by your lab instructor.
Reaction time lab report
Introduction: Briefly discuss what the literature review
says. Remember to cite it properly! Explain what your hypothesis is and how it
relates to the literature. Is it building on those results or looking at
something different, or is it an attempt to replicate those results?
Data table and graph:
Use this checklist for your data table:
Use this checklist for your graph:
Discussion: Did the results support or refute the
hypothesis? If they refuted it, what alternative hypothesis can you suggest?
If you were going to continue studying this topic, what would you look
at in your next experiment? Why?