Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

For my science fair project i was thinking of testing which type of athelete would have the best reflexes. Eg. A soccer goalies, tennis players, hockey player are all tested for their reflex times. However before even starting anything else, i need to know what reflex exactly is. Is their any difference between reflex and reaction time? and are there different kinds of physical reflexes? I appreciate anyones opinion on the questions and on the topic itself. thank you

Hi,

Here is an answer to what is a reflex:

http://kidshealth.org/kid/talk/qa/reflexes.html

You may also be interested in these links on reaction time and how to measure it:
http://www.topendsports.com/testing/reactime.htm

http://biology.clemson.edu/bpc/bp/Lab/110/reaction.htm

You can find many more useful reaction time testing links by using a google search to look for “what is a reaction time”.

This looks like a very interesting project! Have fun with it!

Best regards,

Barrett Tomlinson

Hi!

I'm not sure if this is going a bit far afield, but if you're doing a reflex experiment, you may want to try some children who have spent some times playing video games. I'd expect that children who play twitch-style video games are going to develop faster reaction times than those who don't (simply because having the alien shoot your ship is a Bad Thing and you'd better move your ship out of the way in time).

I'd expect that the method you use to determine reaction time may affect which athletes do best -- you may want to use several different types of reaction time experiments.

Hopefully, you'll find that the video gamers have worse reaction times in general than athletes their age.

ACG

Hi sciencefair2009,

You have a very interesting question! I think the others have pointed this out to you, but a "reflex" is a body reaction that happens without you thinking. When you go to the doctor and he/she hits your knee with the little hammer so your leg kicks, that checks your reflexes. I think what you're most interested in measuring is reaction time. However, it could be very interesting to look at both and see whether they are related!

Let us know if you have any more questions.

Cheers,
Heather

So I guess it would be wrong to say that someone that reacts fast has good reflexes. So continuing with my idea, there's still alot of problems popping up. For ways to test reaction times, the simplest would be a eye stimuli clicking test. The problem with using that test would be; no one can tell the difference between 2 peoples times and would how fast a person can click really determine his reactions in relevance to a actual sport. Considering that different reaction tests give different results, I can say that there are more than one kind of reaction time? I'm thinking of making my own reaction time tester but im not sure exactly what I would be testing. Thank you all for your replies.

Hi sciencefair2009,

I see your problem.

I put "ways to test reaction times" into Google, and found a number of sites that offered ideas. The first site offered an online test that you might be able to use in your project:
http://www.topendsports.com/testing/reactiontest.htm

The same site had information about using the test in a project:
http://www.topendsports.com/testing/reaction-use.htm

There were many other sites that came up, so you may want to look through some of the others yourself.

Hope this helps!

Cheers,
Heather

Hi!
I agree, there are definitely many websites with interesting ways to measure reaction time, perhaps you could incorporate some of these ideas into your own original reaction time tester. Try a google search on "testing reaction times"- there are some really cool websites to check out! good luck!!

Thanks for the help,
I asked some of my teachers, and because of the lack of resources i have to change my experiment up. Another thing that I kept in mind was that my idea was probably done before. I've decided to test what kind of activities could increase your reaction time. I still need a reaction time tester. A old reaction time tester is where you drop a ruler and how fast you can catch it is how fast your reaction time is. I'm thinking of possibly incorporating that into my experiment.
Opinion anyone?

Hi sciencefair2009,

I think your ruler dropping idea is a good one.

However, did you check out that online test I told you about? I think it would be a nice, standardized way to check reaction times among your subjects.

Let us know what you decide!

Cheers,
Heather

Yeah I did check that out, thanks. Using a online reaction time tester isn't a bad idea but I always feel like making something up myself. Do you think it would be a good idea to use both the ruler test and a online test?

It certainly couldn't hurt! That would give you two independent measurements of reaction time.

The results from both tests should agree, but it would still be interesting if they didn't (i.e., if people did better on one test after the activities, but not on the other). Perhaps the two tests will examine different aspects of people's reaction time.

Either way, I think you have a cool project. Keep us posted as you continue!

Cheers,
Heather

If you are interested in testing and measuring reaction times, you should research the "Christmas Tree", the starting and reaction timing system used in automotive drag racing. In a drag race, your time is actually the sum of two times, the time it took from when the light flashed green to when the car left the starting line (the reaction time), and the time from when the car left the starting line to when it crossed the finish line (the elapsed time). A low reaction time means a good driver, a low elapsed time means a good car. A race is run by the first car to cross the finish line (thus the sum of the reaction and elapsed times). It is possible to win with a slower car if you are faster off the line (this is known as a "holeshot win", but being too fast results in a false start known as a "red light" and a disqualification.

With regards to the human aspect, most successful drag racers practice with the tree to hone their reaction times. Rick Moroso (president of Moroso Performance (a maker of high-end race car parts) and a successful drag racer himself) is famous for having a full-sized tree mounted on the wall of his office, which with he would challenge anyone who walked by to a test of reaction time. Each person held a button, and the tree displays the time between when the light turns green and when you hit the button.

Specific to your project, it wouldn't be hard to build something like this to test reaction times. This is similar to the online test proposed by another expert, although some people may find it more accurate.

Hope this is helpful and let me know if you have any more questions.
Michael