Reaction time practical

• Investigating the effect of practice in reaction time


  Test how fast a person reacts to a falling ruler

  Work in pairs

  One person drop the ruler, other person will catch ruler between their finer and thumb

  Length on ruler can be converted into reaction time

  More practice and person has the shorter the reaction time
• Method 


  1. Choose who will catch the ruler and who will drop it
  2. Person one sit on the chair and rest arm flat on the table
  3. Person 2 hold the ruler so the 0cm mark hovers between the finger and thumb of person 1
  4. Person 2 drop the ruler and person 1 catch it between their finger and thumb as fa at and they can
  5. Record how far up the ruler person 1 thumb is
  6. Repeat these steps at least 5 more times
• Results show that more the person practiced the shorter their reaction time
• Reaction time can be affected by lots of different methods such as tiredness which will slow it down and practice which will usually speed up the reaciin time
• What is the practical for reaction time

  ruler method
• Equipment

  Ruler which is easy to catch between your finger and thumb

  A chair for person who catches the ruler to sit on

  A table for the person who catches th ruler to rest their arm on
• Experiment can be repeated to investigate the effect of different factors on reaction-time eg caffeine tiredness loudness age