Yerkes-Dodson: A Law for all Seasons

Abstract

The paper traces the vicissitudes of the Yerkes-Dodson law from 1908 to the present. In its original form, the law was intended to describe the relation between stimulus strength and habit-formation for tasks varying in discrimination difficultness. But later generations of investigations and textbook authors have rendered it variously as the effects of punishment, reward, motivation, drive, arousal, anxiety, tension or stress upon learning, performance, problem-solving, coping or memory; while the task variable has been commonly referred to as difficulty, complexity or novelty, when it is not omitted altogether. These changes are seldom explicitly discussed, and are often misattributed to Yerkes and Dodson themselves. The various reformulations are seen as reflecting conceptual changes and current developments in the areas of learning, motivation and emotion, and it is argued that the plasticity of the law also reflects the vagueness of basic psychological concepts in these areas.

Interpreting ‘Dose-Response’ Curves using Homeodynamic Data: With an Improved Explanation for Hormesis

“…The effect of low levels of stress is to stimulate the response, but at high levels it has a negative effect and a decreased performance. The Yerkes-Dodson Law saw a revival in the 1960s and has found many applications in psychology (Teigen, 1994). Such curves are typical of adaptive responses that are first induced and then inhibited by over-stimulation, similar to the curve proposed here.…”

Audit Structure, Time Pressure and Judgment Accuracy: A Comparison between Strategic System Audit and Traditional Audit

“…Time pressure is expected to negatively influence the audit performance due to heavy reliance on the auditor"s judgment (Brown, 1999;McDaniel, 1990;McGrath, 1976). On the other hand, auditors under structured task rely more on the qualitative analysis of the problem (Sullivan 1984). Therefore, they tend to rely more on information processing than on identifying problems (Bell et al, 1998;O"Donnell & Schultz, 2003).…”

“…Auditors under unstructured audit rely on identifying the problem, gathering the clues, searching for alternatives and then issuing an audit judgment (Sullivan, 1984;Keen & Scott-Morton, 1978). Time pressure is expected to negatively influence the audit performance due to heavy reliance on the auditor"s judgment (Brown, 1999;McDaniel, 1990;McGrath, 1976).…”

Humán szabályozás és addikt potenciál. Addiktológiai kommunikáció - elvi, elméleti alapvetések

“…Reményeim szerint az itt számba vett témakörök mindegyikét -falon függő színházi kellékként -a későbbiekben betöltendő, fontos, addikt vonatkozású szerep várja. Yerkes és Dodson (1908) törvénye az optimális teljesítményről annak legáltalánosabban értelmezett felfogásában, újabban vitatott empirikus alapjainak megkérdőjelezése (Teigen 1994) ellenére, ám éppen rugalmassága miatt sarokkövét adja ma is ember és környezete rendszerszemléletű megközelítéseinek. Ennek az összetett állapotnak a végletes leegyszerű-sítése az aktivációs szint (arousal) és a teljesítmény jellegzetes, korán (1908) felismert, fordí-tott U görbével kifejezett összefüggése.…”