Sight vs. Sound Reactions

Student Exploration: Sight vs. Sound Reactions

Vocabulary: histogram, mean, normal distribution, range, standard deviation, stimulus

Prior Knowledge Questions (Do these BEFORE using the Gizmo.)

Most professional baseball pitchers can throw a fastball over 145 km/h (90 mph). This gives the batter less than half a second to read the pitch, decide whether to swing, and then try to hit the ball. No wonder hitting a baseball is considered one of the hardest things to do in sports!

1. What are some things in your life you must react to quickly?

• When someone throws a punch at you

• Driving and something enters the road

• Shooting games

2. In general, do you think you have quick, slow, or average reactions?

I think I have quick reactions, because I play shooting games.

Gizmo Warm-up

A stimulus is something that can cause you to react. A stimulus can be something you see (visual stimulus), something you hear (auditory stimulus), something you touch (tactile stimulus), or something you smell (olfactory stimulus). In the Sight vs. Sound Reactions Gizmo™, you will compare your reactions to visual and auditory stimuli.

To start, check that the Test is Sight. Click the Start button. When you see a red circle, immediately click your mouse. Take the test until the results appear.

1. The Time from each event is the time (in seconds) between when the symbol appears and when you clicked the mouse. This is your reaction time.

What was your best reaction time? .2230 seconds

2. The mean (μ) of a data set is a measure of the average value in the set.

What is the mean of your data set? .2810 seconds

3. In many cases, the results of a test follow a normal distribution, or a bell-shaped curve.

Select the GRAPH tab. Is this graph shaped like a bell? no

|Activity A: |Get the Gizmo ready: |[pic] |

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