Xinru Zhuang 2IB Bio report

Biology HL
Reaction Time Report

2 IB
by Xinru Zhuang
2009-4-19

Xinru Zhuang 2IB Bio report

Introduction ----How does a reflex take place?

Reaction time (RT) is defined as the elapsed time between the presentation of a
sensory stimulus and the subsequent behavioral response.1 The behavioral response
is typically a button press but can also be an eye movement, a vocal response, or some
other observable behavior. This experiment is aiming to test the visual RT through
computer. When participants see color of dot changes, they press button as the
response.
The RT is measured from color change of dot to the button press. The signal from
change in color will travels from eye along the optic nerve to the brain, from which a
message is sent to another part of brain that controls muscles. The brain then sends a
signal along the nerves to the motor neurons in the muscles, telling them to depress
the mouse button. Signals travel fast along each of the nerve pathways required,
however the majority of the RT is taken up at the junction points in between the
different nerves involved, and between the nerves and the muscles.
This experiment is a simple RT test, i.e. there is only one stimulus and one possible
response and reaction would be different of an additional response options are added
(choice reaction time).
RT is quickest for young adults and gradually slows down with age. It can be
improved with practice, up to a point, and it declines under conditions of fatigue and
distractions. RT is generally faster in males than in females.
Design (D)
Research question: Does age affect visual reaction time of people? If yes, what is the
correlation of them?
Hypothesis: Based on the previously research finding, I hypothesize that the reaction
time will increase when people past age 40. Because during the mid age, the fatty acid
that form as myelin sheath begin to loss, which cause signals passing along the
neurons in the brain slow down.2
Independent variable: Age
Dependent variable: The visual reaction time
Controlled variable:
gender
the same tester
all of the participant were asked to play it with mouse
all of them have a trial before having the test
1
2

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaction_time
By Richard Alleyne, Science Correspondent
2

Xinru Zhuang 2IB Bio report

Procedure and method
A simple visual RT test provided from online3
60 participants age range from 10 to 65 are divided into 5 age groups based on
hypothesis
Each age group consist even number of male and female participant
The number of sampling in each group varies in the light of their group range. E.g.
the range of group A (10-15) is smaller than the range of group B(16-30), hence
the samples of group A are smaller than the group B accordingly.
Every person was asked to practice one time in order to be familiar with the test
Every person repeat three times for the test, each time consist 5 testing of reaction
time
The averages of 5 testing are collected as the raw data
the reaction time recorded by the testers automatically present in 4 significant
figures

Data collection and processing (DCP)

Table 1: The descriptive data of reaction time in different age groups

group A
group B
group C
group D
group E

number
of
samples
10
20
10
10
10

Age
/year

Reaction Time (s0.0005s)

Min
Median
Max

Mean

10-15
16-30
31-40
41-50
51-65

0.159
0.194
0.202
0.213
0.207

0.245
0.258
0.256
0.317
0.372

0.234
0.249
0.240
0.288
0.370

0.423
0.424
0.522
0.516
0.534

Standard
Deviation()(
0.00005s)
0.0521
0.0490
0.0643
0.0701
0.0787

Formula:

Analysis:
I use two methods to express the spread of reaction time in each group. One is
five-number summary, one is mean + standard deviation. Both figure1 and Figure 2
demonstrate the variation of reaction time in each age group. I also list 5 descriptive
statistics in Table 1 coordinated with two figures

http://www.mathsisfun.com/games/reaction-time.html
3

Xinru Zhuang 2IB Bio report

0.6

The boxplot of reaction time in different age

groups

0.55
0.5
reaction time/s

0.45
0.4
0.35
0.3
0.25
0.2
0.15
0.1
0.05
Figure 1

0
groupA

groupB

groupC

groupD

groupE

age

We can see from the figure 1, from group A to group C, most values are clustered in a
similar level of RT, whereas the range of three groups is different: The quickest RT
appears at group A, and the slowest RT in group C is far slower than the one in group
B. A larger range of group C indicates that people begin to show a tendency to react
slower though most values are still clustered around the same level with group A and
B. With regard to group D and E, we can see a lift in central distribution of value, in
group D, 75% peoples RT are above 0.25S. Compare to the first two groups, larger
range of distribution in the last three groups suggest that when people getting older,
the RT varies significantly, individual difference is more pronounced.

0.5
0.45
0.4
0.35
0.3
0.25
0.2
0.15
0.1
0.05
0

age

(g
ro
up
A)
10
-1
(G
5
ro
up
B)
16
-3
(g
0
ro
up
C)
31
-4
(g
0
ro
up
D)
41
-5
(g
0
ro
up
E)
51
-6
5

reaction time/s

The mean of reaction time in each age groups

mean

Figure 2

Xinru Zhuang 2IB Bio report

Figure 2 shows that the group B has smallest deviation, shows that between age 16 to
age 30, there is little spread in RT, the age doesnt affect the RT much during this age
period. After age 40, the react capacity decline with the increases of age in average.
However, larger standard deviation in group D and E indicate that RT varies greater
than former groups, from person to person; other factors such as health condition may
become more dominating in affecting RT rather than age.

reaction time/s

The relationship between age and reaction time

0.42
0.39
0.36
0.33
0.3
0.27
0.24
0.21
0.18
0.15
0.12
0.09
0.06
0.03
0

female
male

female
male

10-15
group A

16-30
group B

31-40
group C

41-50
group D

51-65
group E

0.229
0.244

0.254
0.251

0.257
0.254

0.308
0.296

0.372
0.365

age

I also made another diagram emphasizing on gender difference, since the data set is
approximately a normal distribution, I use mean as the standard of comparison, see if
both male and female are following the similar trend in reaction time or they shows
difference due to the gender . However, the diagram shows that the RT of both male
and female decline after age 40, The RTs between ages 10 to 40 are indistinguishable.
In addition, another by-result from the graph is that the male generally react quicker
than female, except in group A, girls react faster than boys, which remains for an
explanation, most possible one may be lacking adequate sampling.
Result:
According the graph and table above, before the age of 40, the age has little effect on
the reaction time, or, put another way, there is no significant difference of reaction
time between 10 and 40; after 40, both male and female perform slower in reaction
time than the person before 40 did. The reaction time has a tendency of increases
along with the age. Nevertheless, there are some abnormal values in the data set
which suggests that the age is not the only cause of reaction time.

Xinru Zhuang 2IB Bio report

Conclusion and Evaluation (CE)
Conclusion:
We could draw a conclusion that the age and reaction time has a mutual correlation
whereas this correlation doesnt provide cause-effect relationship. For the explanation
of why elder people react slower than young people, recent scientists at the University
of California, Los Angeles, publish a finding and suggest that the myelin sheath which
function as a insulation, for allowing the fast bursts of signals passing along the
neurons, are continually breakdown and repair. Whereas when people get older, the
ability to repair is declining at an accelerating rate. The process of myelin breakdown
begins in middle age and "slowly erodes myelin's ability to support the very highest
frequency AP bursts.4
Welford (1980) speculates on the reason for slowing reaction time with age. Its not
just simple mechanical factors like the speed of nervous conduction. It may be the
tendency of older people to be more careful and monitor their responses more
thoroughly (Botwinick, 1966). Myerson et al. (2007) found that older adults were as
adept as younger people at assimilating information, but they did take longer to react.
5 Other researchers finding suggests that, in older adults, their nervous system still
work well whereas there was a significant lag in the ability to ignore unhelpful
information.( Adam Gazzaley, 2007)
On the other side, the potential implication within this research may be that with the
increases of age, people tend to take more medicine and their health condition may be
weaker than before, thus the medicine effect and illness may have significant
influence on the reaction time.
Evaluation:
According to my statistical analysis of the correlation between reaction time and age,
the age do has effect on simple reaction time, and the result from data basically
support my hypothesis which suggests that the reaction time will increase after years
of 40.
However, there are some limitations and weakness need to be noticed.
1. To a large extend, my data processing is based on my previous hypothesis, hence
the experimenter effect may lead to the final answer that I expected. The age
interval was designed to be quiet large, on another side, it due to the inadequate
sampling (which I attribute that to personal limit of data collecting----dont have
enough time and impossible to collect larger sampling more than 100), so perhaps
the reaction time begin to increase at earlier age, whereas the turning point may
be concealed in a large age interval.
4

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/science/sciencenews/3353720/Brain-starts-to-slow-down-at-40.
html
5
A Literature Review on Reaction Time by Robert J. Kosinski Clemson University
6

Xinru Zhuang 2IB Bio report

2. The range of age is small, there is no sampling after age 65 and before age 10,
hence we loss the farther information of reaction time about children and elder.
The difficulty is that it hard to guide children do a complex test, and that could
also applied to the elderly people.
3. Risk of sampling basis. All the participants are educated people and since I didn't
take a simple random sample (SRS) of the population, so the sampling may can
not be generalized for representing the reaction time of entire population.
4. Lack of control of experiment. It is impossible to make all the participants do the
reaction time test under same condition, although at last we could see in whatever
condition, the elder still react slower than the young people.
I list some uncertainties below that may affect the reaction time rather than age:
mouse sensitivity
test in different period of the day
The amount of sleep
conditions of fatigue and distractions an illness
exercise
impairment from smoke/alcohol
intelligence
race ( The samplings are from variety of countries and ethnic group)
Possible improvement:
So overall, the result derived from experiment can only regard as en sketchy
correlation between age and reaction time. The accuracy of data could be improved
with more accurate apparatus for measuring the reaction time, as to other limitations,
adequate financial support and time is required.

Xinru Zhuang 2IB Bio report

Appendix

age
12
12
13
14
15
18
19
20
21
23
24
26
27
29
30
33
34
35
37
40
43
45
46
47
47
51
54
60
63
64

Raw Data of Reaction Time concerning age in male and female

female
reaction
s0.0005s)
0.207
0.216
0.243
0.241
0.237
0.216
0.245
0.233
0.271
0.251
0.264
0.251
0.24
0.212
0.357
0.243
0.376
0.264
0.204
0.253
0.312
0.282
0.272
0.228
0.207
0.268
0.245
0.249
0.261
0.251
0.268
0.234
0.263
0.237
0.303
0.208
0.374
0.276
0.329
0.224
0.472
0.374
0.265
0.266
0.469
0.316
0.288
0.265
0.264
0.225
0.217
0.207
0.415
0.367
0.48
0.423
0.534
0.423
0.452
0.432

time age
0.211
0.205
0.216
0.254
0.184
0.223
0.208
0.208
0.241
0.194
0.323
0.262
0.257
0.233
0.246
0.218
0.218
0.212
0.284
0.215
0.384
0.234
0.322
0.213
0.259
0.215
0.375
0.341
0.352
0.345

10
12
13
14
15
16
18
19
19
20
24
25
26
27
28
31
34
34
35
37
43
44
46
48
49
54
57
61
63
65

male
reaction
(s0.0005s)
0.265
0.226
0.214
0.225
0.228
0.18
0.323
0.301
0.254
0.298
0.276
0.234
0.256
0.245
0.237
0.204
0.328
0.226
0.277
0.215
0.274
0.248
0.324
0.312
0.216
0.212
0.298
0.253
0.283
0.254
0.243
0.235
0.253
0.246
0.322
0.261
0.202
0.224
0.351
0.254
0.218
0.295
0.314
0.254
0.271
0.287
0.283
0.323
0.423
0.312
0.314
0.353
0.368
0.384
0.351
0.372
0.423
0.396
0.431
0.354

time
0.234
0.246
0.159
0.234
0.275
0.263
0.201
0.231
0.201
0.253
0.232
0.248
0.218
0.245
0.28
0.213
0.259
0.267
0.269
0.212
0.261
0.286
0.349
0.271
0.291
0.303
0.326
0.43
0.279
0.395