Introduction
As this social experiment was conducted, the goal needed to be attained is to support the sensory motor theory. As humans, our senses are the reasons we comprehend and interpret the world around us. Taste, scent, touch, hearing, and sight are the five traditional senses we have (Bailey, 2020). Inputs from each sensory organ in the body are relayed to different parts of the central nervous system through various means, and the information is transmitted to motor neurons, which stimulates a rapid response that saves our day from hitting an approaching ball in our face. How we quickly react to an incoming ball is called reaction time.
Our testable question who has better reaction on age basis? Studies have shown that as we age our reaction time begins to slow down. Although this information above is scientifically proven, some people refuse to believe it. Instead, they choose to believe more common websites put in wording that is not too complicated to understand. Some people are indecisive and say that it depends on your lifestyle. We have been visited a lot of articles and websites. They say that if you exercise, eat healthy food and get enough sleep each day you can improve your reaction time no matter what your age. By the end of the experiment, we hope to find the complete truth in all of this, by who and what.
In this social experiment we are only going to use two sensory organs; sight and hearing in connection on reaction time of kids, teenagers and adult. The questions are: What stimuli reaches faster reaction time; the auditory reaction time or the visual reaction time? Who has the better reaction time; kids, teenagers or adult? We will know the answer at the end part of the experiment.
Methodology
This shows the methods, instruments and procedures used by the experimenter that are relevant to the gathering of the data needed for the experiment.
Instruments
The following instruments were used to gather pertinent data for the experiment.
Ruler
The experimenter provided a 12 inches ruler that was used in order for the experiment to take place.
Table
The experimenter used table where the participants lay their arm.
Cellphone
Cellphones were used to document the experiment.
Blindfold
A blindfold was used to block the sense of sight of the participant to test how fast they react in auditory stimulus.
Participant
This experiment was participated by two kids, teens and adults.
Procedure
The experimenter provided a 12 inches ruler, a table, a blindfold and a cellphone for the experiment. After the materials needed were prepared, the experimenter proceeded to the data gathering and looked for the participants needed for this experiment.
The following are the process on how the experiment took place;
The experimenter will explain that the test is composed of two parts. The first part will test the visual stimulus and the next one is the auditory stimulus.
The experimenter will give the direction of the first test to the participant. Direction:
The experimenter will drop the 12 inches ruler above the participants hand that is placed above the table without making any noise and the participant should be able to catch it as fast as they could.
The experimenter will give the direction of the second test to the participant. Direction:
The experimenter will first ask the participant to use the blindfold and after that the experimenter will drop the 12 inches ruler above the participants hand that is placed above the table as the experimenter will say ‘go’ as the signal in releasing the ruler and the participant should be able to catch it as fast as they could.
Results and Discussion
The table above are divided into four columns. The first and second column are the profiles of the respondents and the third and second column are the results from the experiment conducted. To measure the visual and auditory reaction time of the participants, the experimenters used centimeter unit. The lower the centimeter, the faster the reaction time in stimulus.
As manifested in the table, kids have faster reaction time than teenagers but both of them has faster reaction when it comes to auditory stimulus than visual stimulus. However, the two adults show different result. The first adult performs faster when it comes to auditory while the second adult performs faster when it comes to visual.
After experiment and in-depth analyzation, many researchers already confirmed that reaction to sound is faster than reaction to light (Konsinski RJ. 2014). Perhaps this is because an auditory stimulus only takes 8-10 millisecond to reach the brain, but a visual stimulus takes 20-40 millisecond (1973). Therefore, since the auditory stimulus reaches the cortex faster than the visual stimulus, the auditory reaction time is faster than the visual reaction time.
Our hypothesis before we conducted this social experiment was that children would react faster than adults because we just say so, it’s our instinct. After conducting the experiment and analyzing the data, this educated guess was proven wrong. The data has shown that adults compare to kids and teenagers is not that slow reaction time. As of fact, we realize that our first adult participant is a senior citizen who has now a quite blur vision but when it comes to auditory stimulus, she is faster than the teenager.
Age, physical activity, level of exhaustion, distraction, alcohol, limb used for examination, and wellbeing, as well as whether the stimulus is auditory or visual, have all been found to impact reaction time. If you are desperate to improve your reaction time there are websites which can help you get a faster reaction time. These are just a few more ways to improve your reaction time:
Play more sports
Be active more often
Stretch out your limbs
In the situation, be calm and plan what you are going to do in your head