Practical 7 Reaction Time

• • Person 1 (testee) should place their dominant arm on the edge of a table.
  • Person 2 holds a ruler between Person 1's thumb and forefinger at the 0cm mark.
  • The ruler is dropped randomly
  • Testee should catch the ruler as quickly as possible
  • Person 2 should then record the height at which the ruler measure in Person 1 hand
  • Repeat and calculate a mean
• The measurements can be converted to reaction time using a conversion table.
• The independent variable could be the person having their time tested (Persons 1 & 2 switch places), or caffeine levels.
• Practice

  • One person catches the ruler many times.
  • Investigating if reaction time is shorter the more attempts are made
• The hand that catches the ruler

  • Dominant vs non-dominant
  • Shorter v longer
• Caffeine:

  • Test subject drinks a measured a mount of cola half an hour before the experiment
  • Compare this reaction time to normal reaction time
  • Problem is that there may be other chemicals affecting reaction time in cols
  • Combat by repeating experiment with a caffeine free cola
  • Compare results
  • Also check for safety of caffeine ingestion - allergies, make sure lab is normally used for safe and not hazardous chemicals