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Level of Education

Post Secondary

Recommended Age

Time Required

  • ~10 minutes
  • ~20 minutes
  • ~30 minutes

~45 minutes

  • 1 day or more

Number of people

  • 100 – 200 €

Supervision

Ruler Drop: The Science of the Catch

Meta Description

Learning Objectives

To understand the concept of reaction time, the time taken for an individual to respond to certain stimuli.

To show the presence of a phenomenon known as muscle memory in which repetition of the experiment should result in a faster response time.

Motor neuron

Conducts impulses towards a muscle or gland.

Collection of neurons.

Nervous system

A system made up of nerves and neurons which transfers information to and from different parts of the body.

Individual cell that conducts nerve impulses.

Reaction time

How fast the person can react towards a particular stimulus.

Sensory neuron

Transmits information from a sensory organ such as skin towards the central nervous system.

A detectable change in environment.

Make your partner sit down, with his/her forearm resting on the table and extending over the edge of the table.

Hold the ruler such that your partner holds the ruler vertically near the 30 cm mark.

The partner should have their thumb and index finger on either side of the 0 cm mark.

Allow the partner to practice holding the ruler with the index and thumb.

The partner should now be ready to start the experiment, and the partner should once again have their thumb and the index finger on either side of the 0 cm mark. Make sure that their fingers are not touching the ruler.

Without warning release the ruler making sure that you release the ruler vertically and not horizontally.

Record the level just above the partner’s thumb where the ruler was caught.

Repeat the experiment and tabulate the results to make it easier to compare any change in response time.

It might be necessary to give your partner some rest between experiments, as if the partner gets tired the response time will increase.

Use a string to hold the ruler instead of using your hands (this is actually an improvement upon the experiment as it ensures that the ruler is dropped vertically rather than diagonally).

  • Use a wooden/plastic ruler rather than a metal ruler just in case it drops on the volunteer`s foot which can be rather painful.  

Imagine you are the owner of a Formula One car which can reach speeds of up to 380 km/h. Now further imagine that you are driving this powerful car in the countryside and out of nowhere a herd of cows appears grazing not far from you. Could you respond to this event and taking the appropriate action to avoid hitting the innocent cows?  We are going to test this by measuring your reaction time that is the time taken for you to notice the cows (ruler falling) and the time taken to brake/move around the cows (catching the ruler).

What are some factors which could affect your reaction time?

Age, alertness and gender are such factors.

Why did the reaction time decrease following the first trial?

Muscle memory.

What are stimuli?

Any detectable changes in environment – in this case, the falling ruler.

How can you decrease your reaction time?

By practicing the activity over and over.

Does the dominant hand have a faster reaction time?

How does alcohol affect your reaction time?

Increases reaction time.

The nervous system consists of the brain, the spinal cord and nerves which can communicate with each other to co-ordinate all of your actions and reactions .

The sequence of events occurring during the time at which the ruler was falling:

  • Seeing the ruler with your eyes (otherwise known as visual information)
  • This visual information is passed on towards the brain
  • The brain sends information to the spinal cord
  • The spinal cord sends information to the muscles of your fingers
  • You close your so that you can catch the rule

The sequence of events occurring during the time at which the ruler was falling can be summarized in more detail by the following steps:

  • You see the ruler with your eyes and pass the visual information towards the visual cortex.
  • The message is then passed towards the motor cortex.
  • The motor cortex sends impulses down the spinal cord.
  • The information passes towards the muscles found in the fingers.
  • The muscles in the fingers contract, allowing you to catch the ruler and preventing it from falling on your foot (which can be rather painful).

<<picture>>

The model for information flow can be illustrated as follows:

Stimulus  → Sensory neuron (convert external stimuli obtained from the external environment into internal electrical impulses – carry information from the sense organs) → Spinal cord/Brain → Motor neuron → Appropriate Response

Faster responses are generated when the information is processed in the spinal cord rather than the brain due to a shorter distance. The spinal cord is capable of perceiving simple reflex actions which allow for a quick response. A common example of a simple reflex action is the knee jerk. However, when a more complex response is involved such as catching a falling ruler, the brain has to be involved.

The reaction time was measured in this experiment , which is how fast the person can react towards a particular stimulus such as a falling ruler. The reaction times tend to decrease with practice this is known as repetition priming. Fast reaction times are what allows you to win races while slow reaction times can lead to disastrous consequences such as driving accidents .

The driver reaction time can be used in crash avoidance research . This research utilizes driving simulators in order to test the reaction time of drivers.

A research carried out in India during the year of 2016 put a light on the distraction effects that can be caused by using a mobile phone whilst driving.

  • Reaction times are known to change with age. Test this by using volunteers of different ages such as for example a 5 year old, a 40 year old and an 80 year old.
  • Test another factor that can affect response time; see if there is a difference between response times when using your non-dominant hand rather than your dominant hand.
  • Another variable that can be tested is the difference in the response time of different genders. An important factor to keep in mind is that all the other variables are to be kept constant, that is both the male and female should have had same amount of sleep, same age etc.

Preparation: 5 minutes

Conducting: 30 minutes

Clean Up: 5 minutes

Number of People

2 participants

Not Required

Table and Chair

Contributors

Response time research.

Reaction Time Ruler

Reaction Time: “Catch a Ruler”

Your Nervous System

Reaction Time: The Ruler Drop Test

Cite this Experiment

Aquilina, M. C., Fenech Salerno, B., & Sammut, D. (2021, January 18). Ruler Drop: The Science of the Catch. Retrieved from http://steamexperiments.com/experiment/ruler-drop-the-science-of-the-catch/

First published: January 18, 2021 Last modified: January 25, 2021

Creative Commons License

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ScienceDaily

Alcohol increases reaction time and errors during decision making

There has been an abundance of research on the effects of alcohol on the brain, but many questions regarding how alcohol impairs the built-in control systems are still unknown. A new study released in the January 2011 issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research , which is currently available at Early View, explores that subject in detail and found that certain brain regions involved in error processing are affected more by alcohol than others.

According to Beth Anderson, a postdoctoral fellow at the Olin Neuropsychiatry Research Centre at Hartford Hospital in Connecticut and lead author of the paper, this research is only the first step in a much larger process."Alcohol is widely consumed in our society today. We know it alters behavior, but surprisingly it is not well studied at the brain level. Once we understand how it is altering the brain, we can better inform the public of the consequences of drinking alcohol."

The researchers gave 38 volunteers different doses of alcohol to establish a breath alcohol concentration of zero for the control group, 0.05 per cent for moderate intoxication, or 0.1 per cent for a high level of alcohol intake. Then, once the alcohol was given enough time to cause intoxication, the volunteers participated in a Go/No-Go reaction test, where either the letters "K" or "X" were displayed on a screen with specific instructions to only press a button when an "X" was displayed.

In the experiment, there was no significant data between the control and moderate intoxication, but there were some very interesting results discovered between the control and high dose testing. After receiving the highest level of alcohol, individuals were found to have an increased reaction time, more errors and an overall decrease of successful trials.

According to Anderson, the lack of data regarding the moderate doses of alcohol was likely due to the fact that the participants were able to partially compensate for the effects of the alcohol. However, following the higher dose, individuals would have had a much more difficult time achieving that. "The increased reaction time was likely an attempt to compensate for their impairment. They may have slowed down in an attempt to keep from making more errors."

However, these results still yield more questions regarding the mystery of how alcohol impairs the control centers of the brain, and only more research will be able to help solve this complicated problem.

"We know [alcohol] alters behavior, but surprisingly, it is not well studied at the brain level," Anderson said. "Once we understand how it is altering the brain, we can better inform the public of the consequences of drinking alcohol."

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Story Source:

Materials provided by Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research . Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference :

  • Beth M. Anderson, Michael C. Stevens, Shashwath A. Meda, Kathryn Jordan, Vince D. Calhoun and Godfrey D. Pearlson. Functional Imaging of Cognitive Control During Acute Alcohol Intoxication . Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research , 2010; DOI: 10.1111/j.1530-0277.2010.01332.x

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Alcohol, reaction time, and vigilance settings: importance of length of intersignal interval

  • PMID: 3774449
  • DOI: 10.2466/pms.1986.63.2.424

An experiment tested the hypothesis that a small dose of alcohol will produce a faster increase in simple auditory reaction time with time on task and increase over-all mean number of and over-all mean duration of extreme long reactions more than a zero-alcohol dose if signal frequency is low. The hypothesis was confirmed and theoretical and practical implications were discussed.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Arousal / drug effects
  • Attention / drug effects*
  • Dose-Response Relationship, Drug
  • Ethanol / blood
  • Ethanol / pharmacology*
  • Reaction Time / drug effects*
  • Time Perception / drug effects*

IMAGES

  1. Solved To test the effects of alcohol on reation times seven

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  3. How Alcohol Affects Your Reaction Time [Infographic]

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  4. Alcohol and Reaction Time by Meghan Conway

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  6. How to Test your Reaction Time

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COMMENTS

  1. How Consistently Does Alcohol Affect Reaction Times?

    I decided to investigate further and setup a small experiment. The Experiment. Every 20 minutes I would record my BAC level using a breathalyzer, take an online reaction time test (http://www.humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime) five times, and consume 1oz of 80 proof alcohol.

  2. Effects of alcohol and practice on choice reaction time

    Forty subjects participated in a four-choice reaction time experiment in which they received alcohol (1 ml/kg body weight) in one session and no alcohol in another on consecutive days...

  3. Reaction Times and Hypothesis Testing - Radford University

    Reaction time is a measure of how quickly an organism can respond to a particular stimulus. Reaction time has been widely studied, as its practical implications may be of great consequence, e.g. a slower than normal reaction time while driving can have grave results.

  4. Ruler Drop: The Science of the Catch | STEAM Experiments

    How can you decrease your reaction time? By practicing the activity over and over. Does the dominant hand have a faster reaction time? Yes. How does alcohol affect your reaction time? Increases reaction time.

  5. Alcohol impairs the cognitive component of reaction time to ...

    Objective: Research from a recent study indicates that cognitive performance is impaired by an acute dose of alcohol at blood alcohol concentrations (BACs) that do not affect motor performance. That study measured reaction time (RT) to the omission of a recurring stimulus and used behavioral criteria to fractionate premotor (cognitive) and ...

  6. Alcohol and cognitive aspects of reaction time - ResearchGate

    Performance on two auditory choice reaction time (RT) tasks was studied in a group of 12 subjects under the influence of graded doses of ethyl alcohol ranging from placebo to 1 g/kg body...

  7. Alcohol increases reaction time and errors during decision ...

    After receiving the highest level of alcohol, individuals were found to have an increased reaction time, more errors and an overall decrease of successful trials.

  8. Younger, drunk, and fast: Paradoxical rapid reaction time in ...

    This study aimed to assess performance on vibrotactile simple and choice RT tasks between hazardous and non-hazardous drinkers. Methods: Participants (n = 86) completed vibrotactile tasks and alcohol, mood and subjective function (Executive Function Index (EFI)) questionnaires.

  9. Alcohol increases reaction time and errors during decision making

    highest level of alcohol, individuals were found to have an increased reaction time, more errors and an overall decrease of successful trials.

  10. Alcohol, reaction time, and vigilance settings: importance of ...

    An experiment tested the hypothesis that a small dose of alcohol will produce a faster increase in simple auditory reaction time with time on task and increase over-all mean number of and over-all mean duration of extreme long reactions more than a zero-alcohol dose if signal frequency is low.