Abstract
Two explanations for the Yerkes-Dodson Effect (1908) were tested. Easterbrook (1959) proposed that arousal reduces the range of cue utilization. Thus, arousal should interfere with the capacity for simultaneous (dual) memory scans. In contrast, Humphreys and Revelle (1984) proposed that arousal facilitates sustained information transfer but interferes with short-term memory. Arousal should thus reduce the time needed to prepare to respond but increase the time needed to scan memory. Either caffeine or placebo was given to 78 subjects who differed in impulsivity. They completed three versions of a memory-scanning task: two single-task versions (physical and category matches) and one dual-task version (either type of match). As predicted by Humphreys and Revelle, relative to placebo, caffeine lowered the intercept (p<.01), suggesting facilitation of sustained information transfer, but increased the slope (p<.05), suggesting impairment of access to short-term memory, of the regression of reaction time on log-transformed memory-set size. That caffeine had a main effect on slopes and on intercepts but did not interact with type of task suggests that arousal does not necessarily disrupt dual-task performance.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Anderson, K. J. (1981).The current status of the Easterbrook hypothesis. Unpublished manuscript, Northwestern University.
Anderson, K. J. (1988).Impulsivity, caffeine, and task difficulty: A within-subjects test of the Yerkes-Dodson law. Manuscript submitted for publication.
Anderson, K. J. (in press). Arousal and the inverted-U hypothesis: A critique of Neiss's “Reconceptualizing arousal.”Psychological Bulletin.
Anderson, K. J., & Revelle, W. (1982). Impulsivity, caffeine, and proofreading: A test of the Easterbrook hypothesis.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 8 614–624.
Anderson, K. J., & Revelle, W. (1983). The interactive effects of caffeine, impulsivity and task demands on a visual search task.Personality and Individual Differences, 4 127–134.
Bacon, S. J. (1974). Arousal and the range of cue utilization.Journal of Experimental Psychology, 102 81–87.
Battig, W. F., & Montague, W. E. (1969). Category norms for verbal items in 56 categories: A replication and extension of the Connecticut category norms.Journal of Experimental Psychology Monographs, 80(3, pt. 2).
Blake, M. J. F. (1967). Relationship between circadian rhythm of body temperature and introversion-extraversion.Nature, 215 896–897.
Briggs, G. E. (1974). On the predictor variable for choice reaction time.Memory and Cognition, 2 575–580.
Broadbent, D. E. (1978). The current state of noise research: Reply to Poulton.Psychological Bulletin, 85 1052–1067.
Broadhurst, P. L. (1959). The interaction of task difficulty and motivation: The Yerkes-Dodson Law revived.Acta Psychologica, 16 321–338.
Burrows, D., & Okada, R. (1976). Parallel scanning of physical and category information.Memory and Cognition, 4 31–35.
Cook, T. D., & Campbell, D. T. (1979).Quasi-experimentation: Design and analysis issues for field settings. Chicago: Rand McNally.
Cronbach, L. J., & Meehl, P. E. (1955). Construct validity in psychological tests.Psychological Bulletin, 52 281–302.
Dickman, S. J., & Meyer, D. E. (1988). Impulsivity and speed-accuracy tradeoffs in information processing.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54 274–290.
Duffy, E. (1962).Activation and behavior. New York: Wiley.
Easterbrook, J. A. (1959). The effect of emotion on cue utilization and the organization of behavior.Psychological Review, 66 183–201.
Eysenck, H. J. (1967).The biological basis of personality. Springfield, IL: Charles C Thomas.
Eysenck, H. J., & Eysenck, M. W. (1985).Personality and individual differences: A natural science approach. New York: Plenum.
Eysenck, H. J., & Eysenck, S. B. G. (1964).Eysenck Personality Inventory. San Diego, CA: Educational and Industrial Testing Service.
Eysenck, H. J., & Levey, A. (1972). Conditioning, introversion-extraversion and the strength of the nervous system. In V. D. Nebylitsyn & J. A. Gray (Eds.),Biological bases of individual behavior (pp. 206–220). New York: Academic Press.
Eysenck, M. W., & Eysenck, M. C. (1979). Memory scanning, introversion-extraversion, and levels of processing.Journal of Research in Personality, 13 305–315.
Eysenck, S. B. G., & Eysenck, H. J. (1975).Manual of the EPQ (Personality Questionnaire). London: Hodder and Stoughton.
Folkard, S., Knauth, P., Monk, T. H., & Rutenfranz, J. (1976). The effect of memory load on the circadian variation in performance efficiency under a rapidly rotating shift system.Ergonomics, 19 479–488.
Frcka, G., & Martin, I. (1987). Is there — or is there not — an influence on impulsiveness on classical eyelid conditioning?Personality and Individual Differences, 8 241–252.
Gilbert, R. M. (1976). Caffeine as a drug of abuse. In R. G. Gibbons, Y. Israel, H. Kalant, R. E. Popham, W. Schmit, & R. G. Smart (Eds.)Research advances in alcohol and drug problems, (Vol. 3, pp. 47–176). New York: Wiley.
Hebb, D. O. (1955). Drives and the C. N. S. (conceptual nervous system).Psychological Review, 62 243–254.
Hockey, G. R. J. (1970a). Changes in attention allocation in a multicomponent task under loss of sleep.British Journal of Psychology, 61 473–480.
Hockey, G. R. J. (1970b). Effect of loud noise on attentional selectivity.Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 22 28–36.
Hockey, G. R. J. (1970c). Signal probability and spatial location as possible bases of increased selectivity in noise.Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 22 37–42.
Humphreys, M. S., & Revelle, W. (1984). Personality, motivation, and performance: A theory of the relationship between individual differences and information processing.Psychological Review, 91 153–184.
Lacey, J. L. (1967). Somatic patterning and stress: Some revisions of activation theory. In M. H. Appley & R. Trumbell (Eds.),Psychological stress (pp. 14–37). New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
Loo, R. (1980). Role of primary personality factors in the perception of traffic signs and driver violations and accidents.Accident Analysis and Prevention, 11 125–127.
McClelland, J. L. (1979). On the time relations of mental processes: An examination of systems of processes in cascade.Psychological Review, 86 287–330.
O'Gorman, J. G., & Lloyd, J. E. M. (1987). Extraversion, impulsiveness, and EEG alpha activity.Personality and Individual Differences, 8 169–174.
Poulton, E. C. (1978). A new look at the effects of noise: A rejoinder.Psychological Bulletin, 85 1068–1079.
Rall, T. W. (1980). Central nervous system stimulants: The xanthines. In L. S. Goodman & A. Gilman (Eds.),Pharmacological basis of therapeutics (6th ed. pp. 592–607). New York: Macmillan.
Ratcliff, R. (1978). A theory of memory retrieval.Psychological Review, 85 59–108.
Revelle, W., Amaral, P., & Turriff, S. (1976). Introversion/extroversion, time stress, and caffeine: Effect on verbal performance.Science, 192 149–150.
Revelle, W., & Anderson, K. J. (in press). Models for the testing of theory. In A. Gale & M. W. Eysenck (Eds.),Handbook of individual differences: Biological perspectives. New York: Wiley.
Revelle, W., Anderson, K. J., & Humphreys, M. S. (1987). Empirical tests and theoretical extensions of arousal-based theories of personality. In J. Strelau & H. J. Eysenck (Eds.),Personality dimensions and arousal (pp. 17–36). New York: Plenum.
Revelle, W., Humphreys, M. S., Simon, L., & Gilliland, K. (1980). The interactive effect of personality, time of day and caffeine: A test of the arousal model.Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 109 1–31.
Rocklin, T., & Revelle, W. (1981). The measurement of extraversion: A comparison of the Eysenck Personality Inventory and the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire.British Journal of Social Psychology, 20 279–284.
Shiffrin, R. M., & Schneider, W. (1977). Controlled and automatic human information processing: II. Perceptual learning, automatic attending, and a general theory.Psychological Review, 84 127–190.
Stelmack, R. M. (1981). The psychophysiology of extraversion and neuroticism. In H. J. Eysenck (Ed.),A model for personality (pp. 38–64). Berlin: Springer.
Sternberg, S. (1966). High-speed scanning in human memory.Science, 153 652–654.
Sternberg, S. (1975). Memory scanning: New findings and current controversies.Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 27 1–32.
Walley, R. E., & Weiden, T. D. (1973). Lateral inhibition and cognitive masking: A neuropsychological theory of attention.Psychological Review, 80 284–302.
Wickelgren, W. A. (1977).Learning and memory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Yerkes, R. M., & Dodson, J. D., (1908). The relation of strength of stimuli to rapidity of habit-formation.Journal of Comparative Neurology and Psychology, 18 459–482.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
This research was supported in part by NIMH Grant MH 29209 to W. Revelle, and by Haverford College and Colgate University Faculty Research Grants to K. J. Anderson. We thank S. Henderson, I. Kentengian, S. Robbins, M. Shenon, and D. Towers for their assistance in collecting data, and J. Dovidio, M. Humphreys, A. M. Isen, B. Murdock, J. Reynolds, M. Smith, and seven anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this manuscript.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Anderson, K.J., Revelle, W. & Lynch, M.J. Caffeine, impulsivity, and memory scanning: A comparison of two explanations for the Yerkes-Dodson Effect. Motiv Emot 13, 1–20 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00995541
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00995541