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kharmon's picture

Effects of Stimulation on Pulse

We hypothesized that audio stimulation would cause the least increase in heart rate, mental stimulaton would cause more, and physical stimulation would cause the most. While testing each, we intensified the stimulation, getting gradually louder, or more difficult, or more demanding. We tested this hypothesis on 2 subjects. Subject 1's results are in pink. Subject 2's results are in purple.

 

Soft Music 73 +/- 2 57 +/- 2

Medium Music 73 +/- 2 63 +/- 4

Loud Music 73 +/- 2 70 +/- 2

Easy Math 71 +/- 3 60 +/- 3

Medium Math 72 +/- 1 64 +/- 3

Hard Math 72 +/- 1 70 +/- 5

Sitting Still 73 +/- 3 57 +/- 4

Bouncing 75 +/- 2 71 +/- 1

Criss Crossing 85 +/- 2 85 +/- 3

 

Summarizing our observations for subject 2, we can see that different levels of stimulation do affect heart rate. In concordance with our hypothesis, there was an increase in heart rate the most for physical and the least for audio (at least for subject 2). In the case of subject 1, there was a similar pattern, however we believe that the presence of a heart murmor may have affected her heart rate readings. Though she did increase heart rate with intensity for most of the trials, she had incredibly varying numbers and great fluctuation that was obviously impacting her average.

These findings cause us to believe that there is a connection between your pulse and your brain. We would like to do more tests to stimulate the brain and record pulse findings such as "thinking about your heart rate", visual stimulation, and stimulation of the taste buds.

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