Reflexes experiment problem

[Meaghanryan]

I am conducting a science fair project on whether gender affects a person's reflexes. I am conducting three experiments. The first is the knee reflex. I will use a reflex hammer to see how often the subject's knee moves with 5 hits to the knee. I was thinking of giving it a grading scale of 1 no movement, 2 slight movement, 3 normal movement. The next experiment I will hold a ruler and have the subjects try to catch it. I will measure where they catch it on the ruler. I will then determine how fast they caught the ruler. The last is the eye blinking experiment. I will place a glass door between us and throw cotton balls at the subject and record if they blink. I really need data that can be measured. I think I am fine with my second experiment, but I am having a hard time with my first and third. Can you help me?

Thanks

[deleted-71932]

What did not work in your first experiment? Is is difficult to distinguish between normal and slight response? Maybe it will be easier to if you rated with (1) movement and (2) no movement so that the data is more definite. Also,it may be a good idea to ask your subjects to look away while you are hitting their knee so the movements are more based on reflex then on impulse.

As for the third experiment, I think most people will blink anyway even if cotton balls were not thrown at them. Do you think there is a way for you to measure how long it takes for them to blink? It might be kind of hard because these reflexes can take less than a second and require really precise timers. Maybe you can ask your test subjects to do reflex tests online like this one:
http://reflextest.net/reaction/color.htm (My fastest was 0.293 seconds)
There are more here: http://reflextest.net/index.htm

[deleted-71827]

Hi,
I agree with the other expert that your first experiment will be hard to do if you have three categories, so limiting it to a very simple "yes or no" will be more helpful to you in terms of results. As for the third experiment, the cotton ball method is often used to test eye reflexes so again, you can limit it to a very simple, "yes, the person blinked" or a "no, the person did not blink." Both of these methods will give you definitive data as to how many people responded to each reflex. After you have gathered your data, research online about why certain people may not respond to such reflexes, such as the following website:

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-blink-reflex.htm

Best of luck!