Reflex Lab

Reflex Lab 

A reflex is an action taken as a response to a stimulus without conscious thought. The reflex goes through the spine in the spine arc rather than the brain because it is quicker. In this lab we looked at all the different reflexes; the somatic reflex, the autonomic reflexes, knee-jerk reflex, but not the withdraw reflex because that includes touching something hot or sharp. 

The process goes from the sensory neuron to the spinal chord to the finger to the withdraw to the second impulse then to the brain and then is aware. 

lab analysis: 

1. humans have evolved the reflex of shrinking the pupil because this way the eye is capable of adapting to the amount of light going through the eye at one time so keep the organism safe from being exploited to too much sunlight. 

2. the proprioceptors, used for the muscles, in the knee are what received the stimuli from the hammer. 

The reaction from the thigh muscle is to tighten so that the leg kicks up. When a muscle is being hit the body sees that as a threat and the muscles will tighten to be ready to fight back. 

After the squats, the reflex was more vigorous because the body is tired and finds any dangerous threat more seriously because the body has more to focus on. 

3. Humans evolved the reflex of blinking because it can protect the eyes if something is going straight towards the eyes. 

4. The response was a curling of the foot and it is normal because the ideal reaction would be that during an uncomfortable situation the body should stay close and curl up. 

For a person with multiple sclerosis, they may have a different way to react since they are constantly moving and shaking. 

5. The reaction time for the first experiment, with no texting, was a faster reaction time by about 0.2 seconds. This is true because your mind is focusing on two things at once rather than one thing which will slow down the reaction time. My reaction time without texting was an average of 0.196 and my reaction time while texting was 0.367.
The guidelines for a 2-second buffer are for incidences where there is enough time for even the person with the slowest reaction time would be able to stop.