VCE Psychology cheat sheet

The nervous system divides into the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord) and the peripheral nervous system, which splits into somatic (voluntary skeletal muscle control) and autonomic (involuntary organ control) branches.

The autonomic nervous system has two divisions with opposing effects: the sympathetic division mobilises the body for fight-or-flight (raised heart rate, dilated pupils, bronchi dilation, digestion suppressed), while the parasympathetic division restores homeostasis (slows heart, constricts pupils, promotes digestion).

A neuron transmits information in one direction: dendrites receive, the soma integrates, the axon conducts the action potential, and axon terminals release neurotransmitter across the synaptic gap to receptor sites on the next neuron.

Neural transmission is electrochemical: an action potential is an all-or-nothing electrical impulse travelling down the axon, whereas synaptic transmission is chemical and graded, so neurotransmitter amount and receptor availability modulate the signal.

Brain structure-function mapping: the hindbrain (medulla, pons, cerebellum) regulates vital autonomic functions and balance; the midbrain relays and coordinates; the forebrain (hypothalamus, thalamus, cerebrum) handles homeostasis, relay, and higher cognition.

The cerebral cortex is divided into four lobes: frontal (movement, planning, executive function, Broca's area), parietal (somatosensory), temporal (audition, Wernicke's area), and occipital (vision).

Plasticity is the brain's ability to reorganise neural connections in response to experience or injury; developmental plasticity is greatest in childhood, while adaptive plasticity (e.g., remapping after damage) persists across the lifespan.

Sensation is the detection of physical energy by sensory receptors; perception is the brain's interpretation of that sensory input, and the two can be dissociated (e.g., ambiguous figures, illusions).

In classical conditioning a neutral stimulus paired repeatedly with an unconditioned stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus producing a conditioned response; extinction occurs when the CS is presented without the UCS, and spontaneous recovery is the reappearance of the CR after a rest period.

Piaget's stages proceed sensorimotor (0-2, object permanence, goal-directed action) → preoperational (2-7, symbolic thought, egocentrism, conservation failure) → concrete operational (7-11, conservation, classification, reversibility) → formal operational (11+, abstract and hypothetical reasoning).

Erikson's psychosocial theory frames development as eight stages, each defined by a crisis resolved toward a virtue; identity versus role confusion is the adolescent stage, and resolution depends on exploration plus commitment.

Ainsworth's Strange Situation classifies infant attachment as secure (distress on separation, comfort on reunion), insecure-avoidant (little distress, avoids contact), insecure-resistant (high distress, ambivalent contact), and disorganised (contradictory behaviours).

Classical conditioning explains learned associations (Pavlov); operant conditioning explains behaviour shaped by consequences, with reinforcement increasing and punishment decreasing the target behaviour, and positive/negative referring to adding/removing a stimulus, not to pleasant/unpleasant.

Schedules of reinforcement affect resistance to extinction: variable-ratio schedules produce the highest and most persistent response rates; fixed-interval schedules produce a scalloped pause-then-burst pattern.

Observational learning (Bandura) requires attention, retention, reproduction, and motivation; vicarious reinforcement - seeing a model rewarded - increases the likelihood of imitation.

Social categorisation is the cognitive grouping of people; in-group favouritism and out-group homogeneity follow, and the minimal group paradigm shows that mere categorisation can generate bias without conflict of interest.

Obedience to authority is influenced by proximity to the authority figure and to the victim, perceived legitimacy of the authority, group support for defiance, and gradual escalation of the requested act.

Conformity to a group norm increases with group size up to about three to four members, unanimity of the majority, and public rather than private responding; a single dissenting ally sharply reduces conformity.

Stress is a psychobiological response to a stressor appraised as exceeding coping resources; appraisal is primary (is this a threat?) then secondary (can I cope?), and the same event can be a stressor for one person and not another.

The fight-or-flight response is mediated by the sympathetic nervous system and adrenal medulla (adrenaline/noradrenaline, fast, seconds); the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis releases cortisol via ACTH (slower, minutes to hours, sustained).

Chronic stress is associated with hippocampal suppression and impaired memory consolidation, while acute stress can enhance encoding of emotionally salient material; the direction of the effect depends on duration and intensity.

Memory is a process, not a single store: encoding (acoustic, visual, semantic), storage, and retrieval; deeper semantic encoding produces better retention than shallow structural or phonemic processing.

The multi-store model separates sensory memory (iconic ~0.3 s, echoic ~3-4 s), short-term memory (about 18-30 s, capacity ~7±2 chunks) and long-term memory (unlimited capacity, durable); rehearsal transfers information between them.

Working memory (Baddeley) is not a single store but comprises a phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad, central executive, and episodic buffer, so concurrent tasks competing for the same component interfere with each other.

Long-term memory divides into explicit (declarative: episodic, semantic) and implicit (procedural, conditioning, priming); explicit retrieval depends on the hippocampus, procedural memory on the basal ganglia and cerebellum.

The serial position effect shows primacy (early items rehearsed into long-term memory) and recency (late items still in short-term memory); a filled delay before recall abolishes recency but not primacy.

Learning is a relatively permanent change in behaviour or knowledge resulting from experience; it is distinguished from maturation and from temporary states such as fatigue or intoxication.

Mental wellbeing exists on a continuum from high (flourishing) to low (disordered) and is not simply the absence of mental illness; a person can experience a diagnosed disorder and still report aspects of wellbeing.

The biopsychosocial model explains mental disorder through interacting biological (genetic, neurotransmitter, neurological), psychological (cognition, emotion regulation, learning history) and social (family, socioeconomic, cultural) factors, none sufficient alone.

Specific phobia is diagnosed as marked, persistent fear of a circumscribed object or situation, cued or anticipated, lasting six months or more, with the fear disproportionate to actual danger and causing significant distress or impairment.

Graded exposure treats phobia by constructing a fear hierarchy and pairing increasingly feared stimuli with relaxation or continued exposure, allowing extinction of the conditioned fear response and habituation to arousal.

Cognitive behaviour therapy targets the maintaining cycle of distorted thoughts, unhelpful behaviour, and emotional distress; it is structured, time-limited, and relies on behavioural experiments and cognitive restructuring.

Benzodiazepines act as GABA-A receptor agonists, increasing inhibitory neurotransmission and producing rapid anxiolytic and sedative effects; they carry tolerance and dependence risk, so use is typically short-term.

SSRIs block serotonin reuptake, raising synaptic serotonin; therapeutic benefit usually emerges over several weeks, which is inconsistent with an immediate neurotransmitter-deficit account and supports neuroplasticity explanations.

Placebo-controlled trials are needed to isolate a treatment's specific effect from expectancy, natural recovery, and regression to the mean; random allocation and blinding control for these confounders.

Ethical treatment research requires informed consent, voluntary participation, the right to withdraw without penalty, confidentiality, and debriefing; deception must be justified, minimal, and disclosed afterwards.