Talk:Yerkes–Dodson law

It is a scientific principal
Shouldn't it be principle? Jclerman 01:22, 21 October 2005 (UTC) Not if he/she is the director of a scientific establishment. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.32.65.130 (talk) 04:21, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Despite some evidence existing in contrast to it, the law is generally respected
1. Please, clarify meaning of contrast and give a reference about it.

2. Please, clarify meaning of respected and give a reference about it. Jclerman 01:26, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

"Law?"
How can this principle which is based on empirical evidence be considered a "Law?"

Royalhead (talk) 21:48, 18 October 2009 (UTC)


 * "Principle based on empirical evidence" is more or less the definition of a scientific law. Gwideman (talk) 02:40, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
 * The quality of evidence is way too low for this to be considered a law in any scientific sense. Furthermore, I think many people misconstrue that this study performed in mice translates in any way to adults. I propose the article title be changed to "theory" instead of "law." Tyler86435 (talk) 18:44, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

Unknown person's comment
What is the citation for the critique section?

Misinterpretations?
I wonder how many people, including those who write textbooks in psychology, have actually ever READ the Yerkes & Dodson (1908) article. They studied arousal and performance about as much as they studied toothpaste and goats. Not to mention, there was a major interaction with the difficulty of a task. See Baumler and Leinert (1993) for a re-analysis of the data, as well. For a great review see Hanoch, Y & Vitouch, O. (2004). When less is more: Information, emotional arousal and the ecological reframing of the Yerkes-Dodson Law. Theory & Psychology, 14, 427-452. (as well as the original published material)

--Trobic2 (talk) 17:40, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Link to adhd?
It seems to me that this is the empirical basis for the Low arousal theory? Should this be mentioned on the page?--Test35965 (talk) 23:06, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Norepinepherine
Does norepinephrine offer an explanation? --IO Device (talk) 22:53, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

citations in glucocorticoid section
The only citation in the glucocorticoid section is Lupien SJ, Maheu F, Tu M, Fiocco A, Schramek TE (2007). "The effects of stress and stress hormones on human cognition: Implications for the field of brain and cognition". Brain and Cognition 65: 209–237. doi:10.1016/j.bandc.2007.02.007. . It doesn't make a strong case for the role of glucocorticoids as as basis for the Yerkes-Dodson law.

However, the following review article does try to identify the hormonal basis: Calabrese, E. J. (2008). Stress biology and hormesis: the Yerkes–Dodson law in psychology—a special case of the hormesis dose response. Critical reviews in toxicology, 38(5), 453-462.

Robertekraut (talk) 21:36, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Someone who knows something about this subject should clean this article up
It references the "curve" without ever defining it or drawing it. This would seem to be an essential component of the most elementary introduction to the subject. Natkuhn (talk) 17:00, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Isn't the curve shown in one of the figures to the right? Sizeofint (talk) 07:48, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

Tunnel vision
"The downward part is caused by negative effects of arousal (or stress) on cognitive processes like attention (e.g., "tunnel vision")" -- so higher arousal leads to too much attention, and that's why the curve slopes back down? How does this work exactly - less creativity and inability for executive planning? This should be fleshed out. Danski14(talk) 15:21, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

Remove Picture captioned: Original Yerkes–Dodson law
This picture cannot represent the "original" Yerkes-Dodson law as it references things like Flashbulb memory, which are not evidenced in scientific literature until the 70s. Also, the picture implies that flashbulb memories should have high performance, but the flashbulb memory article suggests otherwise Flashbulb_memory. Olthar (talk) 22:10, 9 February 2020 (UTC)