Our hypothesis was that if you watch a horror or action movie, then your heart will beat faster than regular. Our hypothesis was accepted since in the horror scene and action scene; the heart beat faster than at a regular pace. This is because of the stress that the visual and sound effects create on your brain and body. Some people are more resistant and do not get as scared or pumped. These movies do in fact make your heart beat faster than regular.
The Exorcist is a movie about a girl who gets possessed by a demon. Her mother tries to free her from this by calling in a priest and asking him to perform an exorcism. The topic of the movie itself is in fact a scary one, since it is physically possible. When we showed the scene, which was more and element of surprise and horror, involving blood and gore and unnatural activity, the subject’s heart rate went up during that scene.
The Transporter is a more modern movie about a man who transports criminals for a charge. In the scene, there was an element of surprise at the beginning, followed by intense action. The heart beat acceleration lasted longer, since the scene was longer. Our hypothesis was then accepted.
We also saw that the strength of the heart beat wasn’t really affected. It was more the rate.
We could have done many things differently to make our experiment better. We should have made the subject watch the whole movie instead of just one scene which we selected. In scary movies usually if you watch what is considered the scariest scene in the whole movie but you did not watch the beginning of the movie then that scene will not be as scary. In scary movies one has to watch the whole movie to be scared because in scary movies all the suspense builds up to the one scene that is very scary.
In action movies it is similar but not as important to watch the whole movie. In action movies if you just watch the action scenes such as a car chase or a gun fight it would still make your heart beat go up. It would probably still be better if you watch the whole movie up to that scene because then you would understand why this happened or why they had to do this. Also like in scary movies there is a certain amount of suspense which builds up to that scene. So if someone else were to do this science fair or something similar then they should make the subject watch the movie from the beginning all the way to the end of the chosen scene.
We still do not know if the movie would still have the same effect without sound/video. This is also a good suggestion for a future project.
Our results and hypothesis are important to the people for the following reasons: People with heart problems may have a problem watching these movies since they affect your heart rate and cause sudden changes in you system this may lead to some injuries or complications in the heart. Another reason is for thrill seekers. Some people might think that action is more heart pumping than scary or vice-versa. This will clear some things up and now they know that horror and action both affect your heart rate, and based on our results, they can decide which one to see.