Lab Report

Student Torres

Professor 1

October 8, 2014

BIO 217

Determining Sensations

Introduction:

The skin is the largest organ of the body. Because of the skin, humans can sense anything around them. The skin has tiny sensory receptors that react to touch. Each location on the body has a specific cortical area. The cortical organization allows humans to know where specifically the sensation is coming from. Sometimes, humans feel two points of contact the same time. The smallest distance of the points is called the two-point threshold. It was predicted that the smallest tactile location will be the fingertips, while the longest tactile location will be the back of the neck.

Methods and Materials:

To prove the hypothesis a procedure was made. The experimenter and the subject used a caliper, markers, a ruler, and a piece of paper to record the data. The experimenter touched the subject’s fingertip with the caliper arms completely together. While the subject had the eyes closed, the experimenter increased the distance between the two points. With the marker, the subject indicated where the point was felt. With the ruler, the experimenter measured the amount of distance where the caliper started through where the subject felt the second point. The procedure was made through certain parts like face, back of the hand, palm of the hand, fingertip, lips, back of the neck, and the anterior forearm. While the procedure was made, data was recorded.

Results:

After finishing the procedure, the data was very clear. It showed that people had more tactile location in the fingertips than in their neck. The amount of space in the back of the neck was a lot more than the one in the fingertips. Also, the data showed that humans have a lot of tactile location on their lips just like on their fingertips. The anterior forearm was of the ones that had less tactile location. The subject had a hard time figuring out where the second point in the forearm was...