Tyler Mire

Professor David Siroky

POS 150
4 October 2021
Experimental Lab

The experimental method article I chose was about the characterization of the non linear

mechanical behaviour of human skin. Basically the experiment was about gaining better

information about the behaviour of each layer of skin, as there are several. This was an

experiment I found very interesting. The subjects used in the experiments were ten people

between the ages of 19 and 24. The experimental design was using a suction ultrasound on each

subject's forearm for measurement. The experimental stimulus or the independent variable was

the amount of pressure applied to each subject's skin. On the other hand, the dependent variable

was the forearm skin of each subject. The goal was to find a certain response to each skin layer at

a different pressure. One weakness of the experiment was that there was no specification of what

subjects were male or which ones were female. I think this is a weakness because I would like to

see if there was a difference between male skin and its reactions versus female skin and its

reactions. I would have had five male subjects as well as five female subjects and compared

them at the end. I also would have used different age groups. It would have been interesting to

see the results of different age groups like people 50+ years old or even kids for that matter.

There are some unanswered questions that could have been covered if the experiment included a

variety of subjects. One strength of this experiment, and perhaps the most important strength, is

that the experiment was reliable and valid. It is important that every experiment can be replicated

in some way or else it is not necessarily a valid experiment. If another group attempted to do the

same experiment, they should be able to get the same results or at least somewhat similar results.
 Citations

Hendriks, F.M., Brokken, D., Van Eemeren, J.T.W.M., Oomens, C.W.J., Baaijens, F.P.T. and

Horsten, J.B.A.M. (2003), A numerical-experimental method to characterize the non-linear

mechanical behaviour of human skin. Skin Research and Technology

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1034/j.1600-0846.2003.00019.x