VCE Psychology 2023

a. [1 mark]

Her heart rate increases (or sweating increases, pupils dilate, breathing rate rises, adrenaline is released): sympathetic nervous system arousal.

b. [3 marks]

Context-specific effectiveness is the match between a coping strategy and the particular demands of the stressor. Going out gave Lana a short-term distraction from her worries, but her stressor was remembering lines, and the strategy cost her sleep. Sleep deprivation impairs memory, concentration and mood, making forgetting lines and feeling anxious more likely. So it was a poor match, not context-specifically effective; a good night's sleep or a final run-through would have fitted better.

c. [4 marks]

Annotations, placed on the relevant parts of the diagram:

• On the leg, arrow up: sensory receptors in the skin detect the pin, and sensory neurons carry the message to the spinal cord.
• On the spinal cord: interneurons relay the message from the sensory neurons to the motor neurons.
• On the leg muscle: motor neurons carry the message to the leg muscle, which contracts, so the leg flinches.
• Anywhere: this is a spinal reflex, an unconscious response started without the brain; the pain message also travels up to the brain, so she feels it just after the flinch.

From the report. In a, a psychological response (such as nervousness) did not score. In c (27% full marks), notes written beside the diagram rather than on it scored at most 2, and one-word labels scored 1. Neurons do not travel; messages travel along them.

a. [1 mark]

Cortisol keeps the body at a raised level of arousal by increasing blood glucose for energy (while suppressing systems not immediately needed, such as the immune system).

b. [3 marks]

Mindfulness meditation involves paying attention to the present moment (such as the breath) and accepting thoughts and feelings without judgement. Practising it reduces worry and physiological arousal, so there is less stress and less cortisol released. Hair cortisol fell only slightly (5%) after 3 months but by 25% after 6 months, showing the benefit grew with continued practice; it then stayed at 25% below the starting level at 9 months, suggesting the benefit had levelled off.

c. [2 marks]

Mindfulness meditation is a single, clearly defined skill that participants can practise consistently for a set time each day, so the independent variable is easy to control. Adequate nutritional intake would mean a major, complex change to daily life, with many more variables to control (and it would be harder for people to stick to), reducing validity.

d. [2 marks]

Limitation: questionnaire answers are subjective self-reports, which participants may exaggerate or answer in the way they think is expected. Hair testing gives an objective, physiological measure of cortisol that does not depend on what participants say.

From the report. In b (4% full marks), answers needed both the attention and acceptance parts of mindfulness and a trend across two time points; many misread the table as a further 25% drop at 9 months. In c, "mindfulness is more effective" was not a reason. In d, "qualitative data" alone is not a limitation.

[4 marks]. Classical conditioning.

• Before conditioning: the sound of the predator (neutral stimulus) produces no fear response, while the puff of air (unconditioned stimulus) naturally produces a fear or avoidance response (unconditioned response).
• During conditioning: the sound of the predator is repeatedly presented just before the puff of air, so the bird learns to associate the two.
• After conditioning: the sound of the predator alone (now the conditioned stimulus) produces the fear or avoidance response (the conditioned response).

From the report. Answers had to refer to the sound of the predator, not the predator, and to repetition with the sound coming before the puff of air. A common error was treating the puff of air as the neutral stimulus.

a. [2 marks]

Independent variable: whether the cows received a sugar treat straight after urinating in the pen, or at random times. Dependent variable: whether the cows learnt to urinate in the pen (for example, how often they urinated in the pen).

b. [1 mark]

To show that it was the treat following urination that caused the learning, giving a comparison with cows that got the same number of treats unrelated to their behaviour.

c. [4 marks]

This is operant conditioning:

• Antecedent: the cow needs to urinate while outside the pen (and sees the pen).
• Behaviour: the cow walks into the pen and urinates.
• Consequence: it receives a sugar treat.
• The treat is positive reinforcement: a pleasant stimulus is added, which strengthens the behaviour and makes the cow more likely to go into the pen to urinate again.

From the report. In a, "treats or no treats" was not accepted: control cows also got treats, just at random times. In c, the terms antecedent, behaviour, consequence and positive reinforcement were all needed.

[5 marks].

• What songlines are: knowledge is embedded in song, dance, story and performance that follow a journey across Country, linking places and landmarks in order, and passed on through generations.
• Encoding: combining location, rhythm, movement and a vivid narrative gives multisensory, meaningful information, which is encoded far more deeply than a list of facts; repeated travel and performance strengthen it further.
• Retrieval: each place on the route (or a sacred object) acts as a retrieval cue, and recalling one part of the song or story triggers the next, so large amounts of information can be retrieved in order.
• Brain area: the hippocampus consolidates explicit (episodic and semantic) long-term memories and helps retrieve them, including the links between knowledge and places along the songline. (The amygdala could also be discussed, since emotional significance strengthens encoding.)

From the report. Many answers restated the stem without explaining how songlines aid encoding and retrieval, or merged encoding and retrieval into one idea. Writing "hypothalamus" for hippocampus, or not saying the hippocampus deals with explicit memories, lost marks.

a. [2 marks]

As late adolescents: a delayed sleep onset (a sleep-wake shift of 1 to 2 hours later) and, given early school starts, too little sleep on school nights (less than the 8 to 10 hours they need) with an irregular pattern across the week.

b. [4 marks]

Blue light reduces both sleep quantity and quality. Quantity (sleep duration): Group B, using blue light, slept least (6.5 hours); Group A, with night mode, slept longer (7.5 hours); Group C, with no phone, slept longest (7.9 hours). Quality (percentage of deep sleep): B had the least deep sleep (13%), A more (18%) and C the most (22%). So night mode reduced the harm of phone use, but avoiding phones altogether was best.

c. [2 marks]

EOG: when the app shows REM sleep, the EOG should record high electrical activity from the eye muscles (rapid eye movements); in NREM, little or none. EMG: when the app shows REM sleep, the EMG should show almost no muscle activity (muscle atonia); in NREM, low but present activity. Agreement confirms the app is accurate.

d. [3 marks]

The zeitgeber is blue light from the phone screen. Light entering the eyes is detected by the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), which signals the pineal gland to delay the release of melatonin. With less melatonin in the evening, the person feels less sleepy, so sleep onset is delayed and sleep is shorter and of poorer quality.

e. [1 mark]

To check that daily phone use was similar across the three groups, since it could otherwise be another variable affecting sleep and the results.

From the report. In b, a clear direction was needed ("blue light affects sleep" was not enough), with comparisons across all three groups using words such as higher and lower. In c (6% full marks), answers had to say what each reading would show and link it to the app; amplitude and frequency belong to EEGs. In d, the SCN was essential, and melatonin is released by the pineal gland, not the SCN.

a. [2 marks]

The autonomic nervous system (sympathetic division). The heart rate rises while the person is still asleep, before they wake, so it is an unconscious response to the frightening nightmare, which is controlled by the sympathetic nervous system.

b. [2 marks]

The model has low explanatory power here. It explains stress through conscious psychological appraisals (primary and secondary), but the dreamer is asleep and cannot consciously appraise anything, and the model does not explain physiological responses such as heart rate.

c. [2 marks]

Any two: neuromodulators are released into wider neural tissue rather than into a single synapse; they affect many neurons across large brain areas; their effects are slower and longer-lasting; they modify how responsive neurons are to other neurotransmitters.

d. [5 marks]

• People with a specific phobia often have a GABA dysfunction: too little of this inhibitory neurotransmitter to calm the fear response to the phobic stimulus (here, the bedroom).
• Benzodiazepines are GABA agonists: they bind to GABA receptors and enhance GABA's inhibitory effect, making postsynaptic neurons less likely to fire.
• Taken before bedtime, they reduce the anxiety and physiological fear response to the bedroom, helping the person stay in the room and fall asleep.
• Strength: they act quickly and effectively reduce physiological symptoms in the short term.
• Limitation: they do not treat the cause of the phobia (the learned fear and catastrophic thinking), may need to be taken every night, can cause drowsiness or dependence, and so work best alongside psychological treatment such as systematic desensitisation or CBT.

e.i. [1 mark]. Reduced concentration (or poorer decision-making, or more irrational thinking).

e.ii. [2 marks]. For example: "If I go to sleep in that room I'll have a nightmare so terrifying that I'll have a heart attack." Sleep deprivation impairs logical thinking and emotional regulation, so the person is less able to challenge such exaggerated thoughts; the catastrophic thinking becomes more frequent, more intense and more believable.

From the report. In a, a justification referring to the heart rate or the nightmare was required. Part b was answered poorly (21% full marks): many described the appraisals instead of evaluating the model. In c, "both excitatory and inhibitory" is not unique to neuromodulators. In d, answers had to focus on the bedroom phobia, not on treating nightmares.

a. [3 marks]. A bar graph: y-axis "mental wellbeing score (out of 4)" scaled 0 to 4, x-axis "traveller type" with separate, non-touching bars labelled regular (1) and irregular (4).

b. [3 marks]

After a night in an unfamiliar hotel, irregular travellers reported high mental wellbeing (4 out of 4), while regular travellers reported low mental wellbeing (1 out of 4). So the unfamiliar environment was associated with much lower wellbeing for regular travellers than for irregular ones.

c. [2 marks]

Quantitative data. Strength: numerical scores are easy to summarise and compare (for example, averages), making trends clear.

d.i. [1 mark]

An extraneous variable (participants not reading or thinking about the questions).

d.ii. [1 mark]

Careless answers would make the wellbeing scores less accurate and reduce internal validity.

e. [2 marks]

Administering: design and use questions that genuinely measure travellers' mental wellbeing, as part of a sincere search for knowledge. Reporting: report all results honestly and in full, whether favourable or not, in a way that allows scrutiny (including that fast responses were excluded).

From the report. Part a was well answered (68% full marks). In b, claiming the environment had a bigger effect on regular travellers was not accepted, because there were no before-stay scores to compare. In c, give only one data type: adding a wrong one ("quantitative objective") scored nothing. Part e was difficult (3% full marks): most did not apply integrity to administering the questionnaire.

[10 marks]. This is marked holistically against four criteria: terminology, connecting concepts, analysing the data, and drawing conclusions (future research). A strong response could cover the following.

• Terms. The gut-brain axis is the two-way communication between the enteric nervous system in the gut and the central nervous system, mainly via the vagus nerve (most signals travel gut to brain). Gut microbiota are the trillions of microorganisms in the gut. A psychobiotic diet is designed to support healthy, diverse microbiota.
• Role of microbiota. Gut microbiota help produce or regulate neurotransmitters and neuromodulators such as serotonin, GABA and dopamine, and send signals to the brain along the gut-brain axis. A diverse, balanced microbiota is linked to better mood and less stress. The axis works both ways: chronic stress and cortisol can disturb the microbiota, and an unhealthy microbiota can increase susceptibility to stress.
• Analysing the results. Both groups' perceived stress fell, but the psychobiotic-diet group's fell by 32%, nearly double the 17% for the general-advice group. This supports the idea that improving the gut microbiota through diet reduces perceived stress via the gut-brain axis. (The smaller drop in Condition B may reflect general healthy eating or simply taking part.)
• Future research. For example: measure an objective stress marker such as cortisol alongside self-reports; measure microbiota diversity directly to confirm the diet changed it; test people with anxiety or depression rather than healthy adults; study the reverse direction by measuring how stress exposure changes the microbiota; or run longer studies to see whether effects last.
• Conclusion. The results suggest a psychobiotic diet can reduce perceived stress, consistent with gut microbiota influencing the brain through the gut-brain axis, and point to research on the biological mechanisms and on clinical groups.

From the report. Strong answers used all the terms in the question correctly, linked the diet to microbiota to the gut-brain axis to stress, quoted and compared both results, and gave a future study with a reason. Some strong answers without future research still scored 6 or 7; simply suggesting repeating the study scored poorly.