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Does Coffee Have an Effect on Reflexes?
This experiment was done to find out if coffee has an effect on reflex times.
Subjects were randomly selected to test their reflex time before and after having a cup
of coffee.
Taryn Alkis
AP Statistics
May 28, 2013
2012 – 2013 School Year
Coffee has been known to make you more alert and can also help increase your
reaction time. It is a popular stimulant which is used throughout the world. This
experiment would be interesting for a person who would like to see if their reflexes or
performance improved after drinking a cup of coffee. In the article “Does Caffeine Effect
Your Reflexes?” it is explained how numerous studies conclude that caffeine can
improve reaction times within minutes or even seconds (Thorne). Therefore, this test
will prove if coffee increases your reaction time after drinking a cup of coffee.
This experiment was conducted with 30 households in Travis Country which
were randomly selected by giving each house a number from 1 to 1409 shown in
Appendix A. A random number generator was then used to randomly select 30 houses
to test. Subject’s reflexes were recorded, shown in Appendix B, by repeating the ruler
test on each subject three times before and after drinking a cup of coffee and then
taking the average. As the subject was standing, a twelve inch ruler was dropped one
inch above the subject’s dominant hand. The subject would then catch the ruler quickly
as possible with only their thumb and index finger. Where the ruler was caught, in
inches from the bottom of the ruler, was recorded as their reflex. The subjects would
then drink a cup of coffee, wait a minute, and then their reflexes were tested with the
ruler once again.
Because the claim that caffeine increases each individual person’s reflexes, a
dependent two-sample means hypothesis test with a significance level of 5% will be
used for this experiment. A significance level of 5% was chosen because there is
nothing medical about this experiment so a neutral level was chosen. After the
hypothesis test was conducted as shown in Appendix C, with a p-value so low it was
revealed that coffee increases an individual’s reflexes. Although this neighborhood may
be a large population, it may not be representative of the whole community because
they may already have fast reflexes due to something going on in their daily lives that
involve fast reflexes like sports.
It has been learned through this experiment that coffee helps increase reflexes.
Overall, coffee can stimulate your body making the subjects react quicker resulting in
increased reflexes. Conducting this experiment has shown that coffee can help
increase reflexes but there also may be confounding variables relating to faster reflexes
as well. If this experiment was run again, to have less confounding variables, a two-
sample independent hypothesis should be conducted where there are two groups. One
group’s reflexes would be tested without coffee or any caffeine, and the other group’s
reflexes would be tested with coffee.
Since the subjects tested may have already had coffee in their system, the first
time their reflexes were tested may have appeared to be better than they would be
without having any coffee or caffeine in their system at all. Another variable that might
have caused better reflex times was muscle memory, or people even anticipating for
when the ruler was going to drop. Coffee is known to make people more alert though,
so it is true that coffee is a definite reason for increased reflexes. There are multiple
variables that could have caused the subject to have increased reflexes but coffee is
definitely one.
WorksCitedRuler Drop Test. 1 May 2013. <http://www.brianmac.co.uk/rulerdrop.htm>.
Thorne, Roger. "Does Caffeine Effect Your Reflexes?" 8 Augus 2011.
<http://www.livestrong.com/article/510954‐does‐caffeine‐affect‐your‐reflexes/>.