1. The average class results for reaction time between visual and tactile stimuli are unlikely to show a significant difference, around 0.2 seconds for both.
2. The optical pathway from eyes to brain is shorter but the speed of nerve conduction is so fast that only large differences in pathway length could produce a measurable difference.
3. Other factors like the touch receptors responding faster or more synapses in the optical pathway could compensate for the longer tactile pathway. Transduction delays and muscle contraction time also contribute to reaction time.
1. The average class results for reaction time between visual and tactile stimuli are unlikely to show a significant difference, around 0.2 seconds for both.
2. The optical pathway from eyes to brain is shorter but the speed of nerve conduction is so fast that only large differences in pathway length could produce a measurable difference.
3. Other factors like the touch receptors responding faster or more synapses in the optical pathway could compensate for the longer tactile pathway. Transduction delays and muscle contraction time also contribute to reaction time.
1. The average class results for reaction time between visual and tactile stimuli are unlikely to show a significant difference, around 0.2 seconds for both.
2. The optical pathway from eyes to brain is shorter but the speed of nerve conduction is so fast that only large differences in pathway length could produce a measurable difference.
3. Other factors like the touch receptors responding faster or more synapses in the optical pathway could compensate for the longer tactile pathway. Transduction delays and muscle contraction time also contribute to reaction time.
1. The average class results for reaction time between visual and tactile stimuli are unlikely to show a significant difference, around 0.2 seconds for both.
2. The optical pathway from eyes to brain is shorter but the speed of nerve conduction is so fast that only large differences in pathway length could produce a measurable difference.
3. Other factors like the touch receptors responding faster or more synapses in the optical pathway could compensate for the longer tactile pathway. Transduction delays and muscle contraction time also contribute to reaction time.
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TEACHERS’ NOTES Human senses 1.
03
Experiment 1. Discussion - answers
1 The average class results will probably not show any significant difference (at the 5% level of confidence if analysed statistically) between the reaction times. These are likely to be in the region of 0.2 seconds in both cases.
2 The shorter sensory pathway from eyes to brain might lead one to expect a reduced reaction time.
3 The class results are unlikely to fulfil this expectation. The most likely reason is that the speed of conduction is so rapid that very large differences in distance would be needed to produce a measurable difference in reaction time by our crude methods. Other possibilities are that the touch receptors respond more rapidly than the retinal receptors and so compensate for the longer nervous pathway to be traversed, or that more synapses are involved in the optical pathway.
4 Conduction velocities will probably appear to be from 500 to 1500 cm per second.
5 The assumption that the reaction time can be attributed to the speed of conduction of nervous impulses ignores the other causes of delay, particularly the time taken for the muscles to contract on receiving an impulse. Transduction delays at receptors or synapses will also occur.
6 The muscles which operate the digits are mainly in the forearm and not in the digits themselves.
