Cardio Lab

We started off the 4th quarter finishing a huge cardio lab. In this lab we were recording if different genres of movies changed the heart rate. The first trial we had six subject watching Step Brothers (funny), Up (sad),  and Insidious (scary). The second trial we had the same test subjects and they watched the movies Pool Fails (funny), Marley and Me (sad), and The Conjuring (scary). After watching each of these we recorded the heart rates and you can find them below on the picture of the poster we made. We decided that the scary movies would cause you to have a greater heart rate change. Unfortunately the horror movies had the lowest percent change (-19%), which shows that the horror does not change the heart rate like we expected. The funny movies had the highest heart rate change (19%). Our hypothesis was proven wrong by our data; in the fact the opposite occurred. After collecting all the data, we printed it out and made a poster. Down below you will find all the information on the poster and you will see what you just read is a brief summary of it.

• Hypothesis- If the subjects watched three different film genre clips, then the horror film clip would most likely cause the greatest increase in heart rate because of the perceived danger within the clip.
• Problem-Our group monitored the heart rate of our 6 tests subjects, to decided if the genre of movie clip they watched (Horror, Comedy, Drama) affected, their heart rate.

• Materials

  • Computer
  • Six different movie clips
  • 2 of each genre (Comedy, Drama, Horror)
  • Digital Blood Pressure Monitor
  • A variety of test subjects (3 females, 3 males)

• Procedure-
1. Our group began our experiment by picking out three different types of movie clips(comedy, horror, drama).
2. We then found six volunteers to watch the movie clips, three being girls and the other three being boys.
3. We recorded their initial heart rates before the start of the short clip and then after the end of each to be able to  compared them.
4. We then picked out three more movie clips (comedy, horror, drama).
5. The same six people watched the second set of clips. (the purpose of this was to be able to compare each persons personal results, from the first test results).
6. Step 3 was then repeated in step 6, (The heart rates of the people were recorded before the starting of the clip and after each clip again).
7. After we got all of our test subjects to finishing watching both sets of clips we recorded their individual results into a graph ALONG with a graph of all of the test subjects results together.
• Abstract- Do different movie genres affect your heart rate? That’s the question this experiment set out to answer. We thought that if people watched sad, funny, and horror movie clips, then their heart rates would increase the most during the horror movie because of the perceived danger within the clip. To test this, the heart rates of each test subject were measured at the start of the experiments and then after each clip.  They watched a funny, sad, then horror clip. This process was repeated in a second trial. When you view the graphs, the horror test has the lowest percent changes (-19%), showing that horror does not increase the heart rate like we expected. Instead, the comedy clips has the highest percent changes (19%). This proves that comedies will increase heart rates more than sad or horror movies will.