Read With Your Eyes Not With Your Hands
by Isabella M.
3rd Place - Behavioral Science

Question: My question is, which color ink out of red, green, blue and black will read the fastest?

Research: When I did my research I learned that color vision depends on the absorption of light by visual depends on pigments called photoreceptors, the rods and cones in your eyes. Then I learned that the rods provide vision in dim light and cones are responsible for color vision.

Hypothesis: My hypothesis is that the red ink will read the fastest.

Experiment: The steps of my experiments were first, print a paper with red, green, blue and black ink sentences. Second, I gathered 20 people and had everyone read the sentences while they were being timed. Last, I recorded all results. The materials used in my experiment were a stopwatch to time people and a pencil to record my results.

Analysis: While doing my experiment I observed that the blue and black ink were read the fastest. Then, as I was in the middle of my experiment, I realized that the 1st time you read something, you take a longer time to read. The 2nd, 3rd and 4th time you read something had a much faster reading time. I think this is because you aren't ready to read the 1st paragraph you read. Because of this, I made the people in my experiment read silently in their head before reading aloud.

Discovery: In my experiment I learned that the retina is the part of the eye that converts light that enters the eye to be converted to chemical and ultimately electrical impulses that are sent to the brain for interpretation. Light enters the eye through the lens and is projected on the retina. If this path is interrupted, sight is also interrupted.

Bibliography:
http://accessexcellence.org
http://preventblindness.org/eye_problems/colorvison.html