Pupillary Response & Test Your Reaction Time
What can we learn and apply to the design of robots from the human body's many reflexes and reactions?Copyright 2004 Microsoft Corporation, One Microsoft Way, Redmond, WA 98052-6399 USA. All rights reserved.
Students observe and test their reflexes, including the (involuntary) pupillary response and (voluntary) reaction times using their dominant and non-dominant hands, as a way to further explore how reflexes occur in humans. They gain insights into how our bodies react to stimuli, and how some reactions and body movements are controlled automatically, without conscious thought. Using information from the associated lesson about how robots react to situations, including the stimulus-to-response framework, students see how engineers use human reflexes as examples for controls for robots.
Biological engineers and neuroscientists perceive human bodies as functioning, controlled systems, not unlike robots. Research is increasingly revealing that mathematical principles similar to those used in robotics are extremely useful or even necessary for a complete understanding of the human body. As an example of how engineers get ideas from human reflexes, painting robots are designed to take input from vision sensors in order to continuously move the robot sprayer tip so it is always positioned at the right distance from the car body as it paints.
After this activity, students should be able to:
- List typical human reaction times.
- Explain how the "stimulus-sensor-coordinator-effector-response" loop works in humans and in robots.