Hunter Galindo Amanda Cordero Nardos Haile 12/9/11 Period 1 Biomedical Sciences Experimental Design 1.

Fight or Flight: Does your heart rate increase when youre frightened? 2. Objective: The purpose of this research is to find out how fear can affect your heart rate before and after. 3. Hypothesis: If a human subject is exposed to extreme fear, then their heart rate will be dramatically affected. 4. Safety Concerns: keep a distance between the subject and yourself. avoid any protruding, sharp, objects that can cause harm to both the subject and others around. (necklaces, earrings, etc.) be in a controlled and calm environment when preforming this experiment. Materials: Stop watch Heart rate equipment 2 Test Subjects (Hunter and Nardos) Computer Controls: Temperature of the room, the room, the equipment, and the method of frightening the subjects. Environmental Conditions: For this particular experiment, the environmental conditions required would be: a neutral, controlled, and secluded place. For example, an empty classroom or hallway. Data Collection: The data for this experiment will be collected and recorded by Amanda. There will be a table with the 2 test subjects names on it on the left vertical side of the table. There will be 3 of these the reason being there will be 3 trials. Each table will have both names labeled on them. On the top horizontal part of the table, there will be 2 labels. One will say Resting Heart Rate, and the second one will say Fear Induced Heart Rate. Amanda will take both Nardos and Hunters heart rates before they are frightened for 15 seconds. We will multiply it by 4. Then, after they are scared, Amanda will take it again for the same amount of time. The heart rate will be taken as: hb/m. After all the data is collected, we will then organize all the data into charts using Logger Pro.

Hunter Galindo Amanda Cordero Nardos Haile 12/9/11 Period 1 5. Data: Trial 1:

Test Subjects: Nardos Hunter

Resting Heart Rate: 64 hb/m 72 hb/m

Fear Induced Heart Rate: 80 hb/m 88 hb/m

Observations: The subjects heart rates increased dramatically on the first trial. Nardos went from 64 hb/m to 80 hb/m. Her heart rate increased another 16 hb/m. Hunter started out higher than Nardos but they both heart rates increased by 16 hb/m. Trial 2:

Test Subjects: Nardos Hunter

Resting Heart Rate: 52 hb/m 90 hb/m

Fear Induced Heart Rate: 72 hb/m 98 hb/m

Observations: On the second trial, Nardos heart rate was less than the first trial. Her heart rate was increased the most by 20 hb/m. Hunters heart rate started out really high and only increased by 8 hb/m. Trial 3:

Test Subjects: Nardos Hunter

Resting Heart Rate: 87 hb/m 82 hb/m

Fear Induced Heart Rate: 98 hb/m 98 hb/m

Observations: On the third trial, Nardos started out higher than the second trial. Nardos heart rate did not increase by much. She was increased by only 11 hb/m. Hunter increased by 16 hb/m. 6. Analyze the data and observations: The data shows that the fear induced heart rate gradually increased with every trial. At first, the subjects were relaxed and then their fear induced heart rate along with their resting heart rate increased. In the first trial, both subjects fear induced heart rate were pretty close. But, by the second trial, their heart rates became more erratic and unpredictable. By the third trial, their fear induced heart rates started evening out. We

Hunter Galindo Amanda Cordero Nardos Haile 12/9/11 Period 1 calculated how much their heart rates increased by subtracting the fear induced heart rate with the resting heart rate. 7. Conclusion: The hypothesis was correct, a human subject exposed to extreme fear increases their heart rate dramatically. 8. Summary: The data shows that a human subject exposed to extreme fear does increase their heart rate. Not only do they show the typical signs of fear but their heart rates become erratic and unpredictable. A human subjects resting heart rate does increase after every trial. They become more alert but their fear induced heart rate still increases with every trial. 9. Questions for Further Study: Some questions that still remain on our minds would be: Does an adrenaline rush occur during fear? If so, how fast is that rush? How much adrenaline is released? How much time does it take to recover from being scared? Why do we react the way we do? What other reactions occur in our body while being scared? 10. Reflection/Design Flaws: This experiment could have gone better if we let the subject rest and if we knew how much amount of time they needed to recuperate. Also, we could have done 3 other separate trials not using the equipment and comparing their accuracy. We could have also made sure none of the subjects had any caffeine or high-sugared foods. This could have affected our results, too.