A Scientific Evening with N.A. Bernstein, R.M. Yerkes, J.D. Dodson and D.O. Hebb (original) (raw)

Journal of Kinesiology and Exercise Sciences, 2017

Abstract

<jats:p>Author compares various models of relation between stress and efficiency of a motor operation, described with the Inverted-U Principle (IUP), Multidimensional Theory of Anxiety (MTA) and Catastrophe Model of Anxiety (CMA). He presents the "classical" theory, invented by R.M. Yerkes and J.D. Dodson in 1908, and modified significantly by D.O. Hebb in 1955. The latter is commonly known as the Inverted-U Principle (IUP). Author focuses his analyses on two factors determining the efficiency of a motor operation: cognitive factor (depth of information processing) and temporal factor (speed of information processing). Stress, of multimodal nature, may either stimulate, or deteriorate the efficiency of a motor operation just being performed. One of the possible descriptions of the structure of a motor operation bases on the theory invented by N.A. Bernstein (Brain Skyscraper – BS). Its continuation enabled creation of two other scientific models, the Modalities' Ladder (ML) and the Movements' Management Matrix (MMM). They make a specific perspective enabling joining the theories concerning stress-efficiency relation. This perspective unveils two mechanisms of efficiency deterioration: hypervigilance and hypovigilance, and, consequently, their different products: mistake, proper execution, choking and collapse. Finally, author remarks that the already long known theories may still include great resources of scientific explainability, and that the main task of science is not absolutely true mirroring of reality, but creation of its simplified models. They should be comprehensible enough to be useful in practice. This concerns also the issues of rather complex relation between stress and efficiency in a motor operation. </jats:p>

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