VCE Psychology Question Thread!

[amanaazim]

hey guys, a question i found on an exam trial from the A+ Psychology exam  by kristy kendall says that

Spencer goes to bed at 11pm . If he sleeps continuously, what time would he wake most naturally from sleep?
MCQ

a) 6am
b) 6:30am
c) 7am
d) 7:30am

so like the options are so close together and how are we suppose to guess this answer. i know an adult sleeps for 7-9 hours but like 6am is like 7 hours of sleep and 7am is 8 hours of sleep how do we guess this. The answer for this option B.

[lm21074]

I don't think this would appear as a VCAA question.

As we don't know Spencer's age, we don't know his total sleep time. However, sleep cycles typically have a duration of 90 minutes / 1 hour, 30 minutes (except for very young infants). So if you add 1 hour, 30 minutes to 11:00pm and then to the next time and so on, you will eventually reach 6:30am (e.g. 11:00pm, 12:30am, 2:00am, 3:30am, 5:00am, 6:30am). We naturally wake up at the end of a sleep cycle, so this is why 6:30am would be the best option

Hope this helps

[MoonChild1234]

how should we address reconstruction questions (not loftus)? I'm really confused by VCAA's defintion

[amanaazim]

question from psyched 2019 trial exam.

Q3E) During the seminar the presenter said , 'driving while sleep deprived is as bad as driving while drunk'. Do you agree with this statement? Justify your answer. (4 marks)

so basically is the marking criteria it said that to mention both partial sleep deprivation and total sleep deprivation in it.
(The response compares BAC to partial and total sleep deprivation and uses data) im guessing the data would be total amount of hours that you go on sleep deprivation but do we have to include both partial and total sleep deprivation, even though the criteria said this would be marked holistically that was a key feature . I just wrote about total sleep deprivation and then the effects it would have on cognition,concentration and mood to BAC of 0.10% for 24 hours of sleep deprivation . 1 day equivalent. would i get then 3 marks or 4.

My fully typed answer

Yes i agree with this statement. This is because total sleep deprivation (24 hours without sleep) is equivalent to a blood alcohol concentration reading level of 0.10% where one is in a drunken state. Sleep deprivation also affects your concentration, cognition and mood, in the same way it does when your in a drunken state. Concentration is affected as your ability to focus on one particular thing has been impaired. For driving your concentration can be impaired by not realising that the traffic light has turned from red to green. Cognition can be impaired when your sleep deprived and driving as your unable to properly process the external stimuli around you and your logical thinking and reasoning levels become impaired. This can affect our driving as you may interpret a 60 speed zone as a 100 speed zone and go over the speed limit risking your harm to yourself and others because of illogical thinking. Your mood can be affected when your sleep deprived as you may have a reduced ability of perceiving emotions or either have a heightened state of emotions or reduced state of emotions- tend to feel sleepy while your driving.

[samtadesse]

The 2019 Q19 was a highly disputed question amongst vcaa examiners, they justified that it was because that rearranging of the photographs are in a way "reconstructing" Bruce's memory to repoduce the photographs to form a coherent sequence of the photgraphs which relates to the reconstuctive nature of memory that was found by Loftus' research. I was also confused by this question as many textbooks have discreptancies to the phenomenon of "reconstruction"

The role of adrenaline is to enhances the consolidation of emotional arousing experiences into LTM. During the flight-fright-freeze response, the sympathetic nervous system is predominatly activated, the emotional arousal causes adrenaline released from adrenal glands and induces the release of noradrenaline in the amygdala. which stimulates the action of the amygala to form the emotional memory and signals the hippocampus that the event is significant to be consolidated into long term, explicit memory. In other words, the amygala is responsible for the formation of emotional memories which is consolidated by the hippocampus. I hope that helps

In terms of the sympathetic nervous system and the fight-flight-freeze response, some exams state that the sympathetic nervous system activates the fight-flight-freeze response whilst others state that the fight-flight freeze response activates the sympathetic nervous system.

Although this is a small detail, it has really stumped me. Would you know which is correct?

[samtadesse]

yes but for example if someone has a fear of birds, would the antecedent be [Fear of birds] or like [Interaction with bird]
thanks!!

You typically want the antecedent to be an interaction will the stimulus/environment.
Therefore you could say something like "confrontation with the phobic stimulus of the bird".

Hope this helps

[vehura]

In terms of the sympathetic nervous system and the fight-flight-freeze response, some exams state that the sympathetic nervous system activates the fight-flight-freeze response whilst others state that the fight-flight freeze response activates the sympathetic nervous system.

Although this is a small detail, it has really stumped me. Would you know which is correct?

The fight-flight response (the freeze response is actually activated by the parasympathetic nervous system when the body goes into shock - think first stage of the GAS model) - which can also be referred to as the stress response - is a set of physiological reactions to stress. It involves responses such as increased heart and breathing rate, dilated pupils, and a decrease in non-essential bodily functions such as digestion. These are responses that occur once the sympathetic nervous system activates the release of adrenaline in response to a stressor (I posted an answer about the SAM system a page ago which goes more into detail about the specific way this is activated), and thus means that the sympathetic nervous system facilitates the activation of the fight-flight response. I hope this is somewhat helpful! 

[samtadesse]

The fight-flight response (the freeze response is actually activated by the parasympathetic nervous system when the body goes into shock - think first stage of the GAS model) - which can also be referred to as the stress response - is a set of physiological reactions to stress. It involves responses such as increased heart and breathing rate, dilated pupils, and a decrease in non-essential bodily functions such as digestion. These are responses that occur once the sympathetic nervous system activates the release of adrenaline in response to a stressor (I posted an answer about the SAM system a page ago which goes more into detail about the specific way this is activated), and thus means that the sympathetic nervous system facilitates the activation of the fight-flight response. I hope this is somewhat helpful!

Ahhh that clears it up a lot, thank you!

[amanaazim]

a question can we write outside the grey line as in the grey border which is on the other side of the do not write in this area

[lm21074]

a question can we write outside the grey line as in the grey border which is on the other side of the do not write in this area

No, the borders signify the end of the page, so what you write outside that will not be scanned.

how should we address reconstruction questions (not loftus)? I'm really confused by VCAA's defintion

Hey MoonChild1234,

Take this with a grain of salt, because I'm also doing Psych 3/4 this year and am in the same boat about reconstruction, but:

Reconstruction can be defined as combining stored information with other available information to form what is believed to be a more coherent, complete or accurate memory. For instance, a participant in an experiment may be asked to view a picture and then draw what they thought it looked like over several occasions. Due to reconstruction, the participant is likely to produce a drawing that is different to their previous ones over several occasions, manipulating details.

The Loftus version involves leading questions, eyewitness testimonies, source confusion and presupposition. These elements may influence and cause reconstruction of memories.

In terms of the sympathetic nervous system and the fight-flight-freeze response, some exams state that the sympathetic nervous system activates the fight-flight-freeze response whilst others state that the fight-flight freeze response activates the sympathetic nervous system.

Although this is a small detail, it has really stumped me. Would you know which is correct?

I believe the sympathetic nervous system activates the fight-flight-freeze response

[samtadesse]

Just to clarify, the spinal reflex response is actually initiated by the SOMATIC nervous system.

Is this right?

[lm21074]

Just to clarify, the spinal reflex response is actually initiated by the SOMATIC nervous system.

Is this right?

The spinal reflex is initiated by the spinal cord in the central nervous system.

Let us know if you need further elaboration

[AlannahBottino]

Weird question, can we use the and symbol (&) in an exam? Can we also use abbreviations such as UCS, UCR, etc.?

[tiredandstressed]

Weird question, can we use the and symbol (&) in an exam? Can we also use abbreviations such as UCS, UCR, etc.?

"Commonly used acronyms relating to classical conditioning were allowed."- 2019 examiner report
You can use the mentioned abbreviations but you may want to write the full word then put brackets of the abbreviation, and then use the abbreviation throughout.
That said, you won't be penalised.

[AlannahBottino]

Is the & symbol allowed?