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Kendra's picture

The Beating Heart

In today's lab, we had to utilize different outside variables to observe what affect they had on the heart, more specifically, the heart rate. We didn't have a set hypothesis, but we did have a number of variables that we wanted to test to see if they affected heart rate. The variables that Ashley and I used were different types of music such as rap, reggaeton, classical and rock. We also used other variable like clenching the fist, holding of the breath, listening to a baby cry and being startled by clapping. Here are the results we gathered:

Kendra's Results
  Resting Reggaeton
Rock Music
Claps
Holding Breath
Chan. 1 Mean(mV)
0.086
-0.085
-0.0502
-0.0506
-0.2
Chan. 2 Mean (BPM)
89.73
96.0
94.7
85.3
67.9
Chan 2. Stan. Deviation (BPM)
1.81
1.05
1.45
2.16
0.59

Ashley's Results

  Resting Holding Breath
Classical
Rock
Baby Crying
Chan. 1 Mean(mV)
0.604
-0.089
0.057
.0149
0.2
Chan 2. Mean (BPM)
79.7
74.8
78.2
78.2
86.0
Chan 2. Stan. Deviation (BPM)
2.0
2.3
4.4
2.0
2.0
           

 

The outside variables definitely motivated our observations. We observed that Ashley's BPM were pretty constant throughout the reaction to the variables while Kendra's changed in some manner with each variable. We wonder if these changes have anything to do with personality? or how easily frightened someone gets? Would the results vary if we tested a larger group of people. We conclude that outside variables definitely affect ones heart rate, and the question is, why??

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