DragonflyTV . Educator's Guides . Human Behavior

Human Behavior - Eyes Open! - Episode 111

investigations to explore

Perception
boy juggling Maddy and Martina think that the human brain is the most fascinating “machine” of all. They were especially curious about how much humans remember when their minds are focused on
conversations or activities.

Question
How well can people pay attention to two things at once?

Investigation
The girls gathered six of their friends to play a game of soccer. They told their friends to form a circle and keep passing the ball around. The girls DIDN’T tell their friends that a juggler was going to come out from behind some trees during the game. Maddy and Martina wanted to find out if their friends would notice the juggler and be able to describe her accurately. They wrote a list of interview questions to ask each friend about what they saw.

Results
They found that most of their friends didn’t even mention the juggler when they asked how the soccer game went. But when Maddy and Martina asked if the soccer players saw the juggler, they all insisted that they had. However, almost nobody described the juggler’s hair and clothes correctly, even though they were sure they had it right.

Conclusion
The girls concluded that when you are focused on one activity and something unusual happens, you don’t notice all the details of the unusual event.

Roller Coaster
kids on roller coaster Christopher and Zohabiya love to go to the amusement park with their friends and were curious about why some rides are more scary than others.

Question
How does your pulse rate correspond to the scariness of a thrill ride?

Investigation
Christopher and Zohabiya gathered a bunch of their friends and went on three different rides: Supreme Scream, Ghostrider and Boomerang. They found out how much each person’s pulse rate changed before and after the ride and compared that to how scary each person thought the ride was.

Conclusion
Christopher and Zohabiya learned that there was a direct relationship between increase in heart rate and a ride’s “scariness.” The scariest ride, Supreme Scream, gave the greatest increase in pulse rate.