Getting stuck with pornography? Overuse or neglect of cybersex cues in a multitasking situation is related to symptoms of cybersex addiction

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Some individuals consume cybersex contents, such as pornographic material, in an addictive manner, which leads to severe negative consequences in private life or work. One mechanism leading to negative consequences may be reduced executive control over cognition and behavior that may be necessary to realize goal-oriented switching between cybersex use and other tasks and obligations of life. METHODS: To address this aspect, we investigated 104 male participants with an executive multitasking paradigm with two sets: One set consisted of pictures of persons, the other set consisted of pornographic pictures. In both sets the pictures had to be classified according to certain criteria. The explicit goal was to work on all classification tasks to equal amounts, by switching between the sets and classification tasks in a balanced manner. RESULTS: We found that less balanced performance in this multitasking paradigm was associated with a higher tendency towards cybersex addiction. Persons with this tendency often either overused or neglected working on the pornographic pictures. DISCUSSION: The results indicate that reduced executive control over multitasking performance, when being confronted with pornographic material, may contribute to dysfunctional behaviors and negative consequences resulting from cybersex addiction. However, individuals with tendencies towards cybersex addiction seem to have either an inclination to avoid or to approach the pornographic material, as discussed in motivational models of addiction

Integrating Vision and Physical Interaction for Discovery, Segmentation and Grasping of Unknown Objects

In dieser Arbeit werden Verfahren der Bildverarbeitung und die Fähigkeit humanoider Roboter, mit ihrer Umgebung physisch zu interagieren, in engem Zusammenspiel eingesetzt, um unbekannte Objekte zu identifizieren, sie vom Hintergrund und anderen Objekten zu trennen, und letztendlich zu greifen. Im Verlauf dieser interaktiven Exploration werden außerdem Eigenschaften des Objektes wie etwa sein Aussehen und seine Form ermittelt

On the sensitivity of generic porous optical sensors

A porous material was considered as a platform for optical sensing. It was envisaged that the porous material was infiltrated by a fluid which contains an agent to be sensed. Changes in the optical properties of the infiltrated porous material provide the basis for detection of the agent to be sensed. Using a homogenization approach based on the Bruggeman formalism, wherein the infiltrated porous material was regarded as a homogenized composite material, the sensitivity of such a sensor was investigated. For the case of an isotropic dielectric porous material of relative permittivity $\epsilon^a$ and an isotropic dielectric fluid of relative permittivity $\epsilon^b$, it was found that the sensitivity was maximized when there was a large contrast between $\epsilon^a$ and $\epsilon^b$; the maximum sensitivity was achieved at mid-range values of porosity. Especially high sensitivities may be achieved for $\epsilon^b$ close to unity when $\epsilon^a >> 1$, for example. Furthermore, higher sensitivities may be achieved by incorporating pores which have elongated spheroidal shapes

On the Refractive Index of Ageing Dispersions of Laponite

Aqueous dispersion of Laponite at low ionic concentration is of interest since it undergoes structural evolution with respect to time, which is usually termed as ageing. In this work we study the refractive index behavior as a function of ageing time, concentration and temperature. We observed that the extended Lorenz-Lorentz equation fitted the refractive index dependence on concentration and temperature very well. The refractive index did not show any dependence on ageing time. However, the dependence of refractive index on concentration showed a marked change as the system underwent transition from an isotropic to a biphasic state. The slope of the refractive index-density data is remarkably close to that of water at all Laponite concentrations. In the context of transport phenomena, optical measurements such as interferometry can exploit the water-like behavior of Laponite dispersions.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures, to appear in Applied Clay Scienc

Investigation of the impact of water absorption on retinal OCT imaging in the 1060 nm range

Recently, the wavelength range around 1060 nm has become attractive for retinal imaging with optical coherence tomography (OCT), promising deep penetration into the retina and the choroid. The adjacent water absorption bands limit the useful bandwidth of broadband light sources, but until now, the actual limitation has not been quantified in detail. We have numerically investigated the impact of water absorption on the axial resolution and signal amplitude for a wide range of light source bandwidths and center wavelengths. Furthermore, we have calculated the sensitivity penalty for maintaining the optimal resolution by spectral shaping. As our results show, with currently available semiconductor-based light sources with up to 100–120 nm bandwidth centered close to 1060 nm, the resolution degradation caused by the water absorption spectrum is smaller than 10%, and it can be compensated by spectral shaping with negligible sensitivity penalty. With increasing bandwidth, the resolution degradation and signal attenuation become stronger, and the optimal operating point shifts towards shorter wavelengths. These relationships are important to take into account for the development of new broadband light sources for OCT

Refractive Index of Humid Air in the Infrared: Model Fits

The theory of summation of electromagnetic line transitions is used to tabulate the Taylor expansion of the refractive index of humid air over the basic independent parameters (temperature, pressure, humidity, wavelength) in five separate infrared regions from the H to the Q band at a fixed percentage of Carbon Dioxide. These are least-squares fits to raw, highly resolved spectra for a set of temperatures from 10 to 25 C, a set of pressures from 500 to 1023 hPa, and a set of relative humidities from 5 to 60%. These choices reflect the prospective application to characterize ambient air at mountain altitudes of astronomical telescopes.Comment: Corrected exponents of c0ref, c1ref and c1p in Table

Stress and reflection effects on the IGT

Stressful situations hinder judgment. Effects of stress induced by anticipated public speaking on the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) were examined. The Cognitive Reflection Task (CRT) was used to examine the relationship between reflective thinking and IGT performance. The stress manipulation increased blood pressure and was associated with poorer IGT and CRT performance. Stressed participants were slower to avoid the disadvantageous decks. Moreover, CRT scores correlated with optimal deck selections indicating the importance of reflective thinking for good performance on the IGT. These correlations were observed in relatively early trials, which challenges the view that analytic thinking is not important when card contingencies are being learned. Data revealed that IGT performance in healthy individuals is not always optimal; stress levels impair performance. A mediation analysis was consistent with the proposal that the stress manipulation reduced IGT performance by impeding reflective thinking. Thus reflective processing is an important explanation of IGT performance in healthy populations. It was concluded that more reflective participants appear to learn from the outcomes of their decisions even when stressed

On the role of executive subcomponents, goal mechanisms, and methods of measurement in decision making under risk conditions

In several scientific disciplines human decision-making behavior has gained rapidly growing interest in the last decades. Neuropsychological research made remarkable effort to investigate the cognitive and emotional processes involved during decision making in different types of decision situations, for example under ambiguity and under risk conditions. In decisions under risk conditions, explicit information about the rules for gains and losses is available to the decision maker (Brand, Labudda, & Markowitsch, 2006; Yates & Stone, 1992). In the wide research field on this type of decisions, there are still theoretical and methodological gaps. Three outstanding gaps are addressed in this thesis. First, a neuropsychological model that theoretically describes the processes involved in these decisions was proposed by Brand and colleagues (2006) but still waits to be specified. Particularly, the model suggests executive functions as the main director of decision-making behavior, but it is not described in detail which subcomponents of the central executive system contribute in which way to decision making. Second, the model does not incorporate one of the main moderators of human behavior and cognitive performance: explicit outcome goals. Third, a methodological gap in decision-making research is to be found in the measurement of decision-making competences. For the measurement several laboratory gambling tasks are used. The variety of existing tasks as well the tasks’ architectures severely restrict the theoretical and practical conclusions that can be drawn from the results they provide. The main problems of the tasks are that they differ with regard to several attributes, are often inflexible for experimental manipulation, and that their ecological validities are restricted due to their gambling orientation. The first two studies of this thesis aimed to fill the gaps in the theoretical model. Study 1 investigated the role of different executive subcomponents in decision-making performance. It was found that particularly strategy managing functions, such as planning and monitoring, predicted performance, while situation processing functions, such as attention/inhibition and coding of information, supported the strategy managing operations. Study 2 investigated the effects of explicit goals on performance in a decision situation that provides increased strategic control. Realistic and attainable goals were found to have a positive effect, improving decision-making performance. In contrast, if the goals were unrealistic and too high, performance decreased. Study 3 evaluated an innovative methodological framework for measuring decision-making performance. The new framework allows designing several decision-making problems within one real-world oriented and unitary story line. The attributes of three standard decision-making tasks were mapped to the new scenario and it was found that participants behaved similarly in the new scenario compared to the original tasks. This indicates that the new scenario measures decision-making performance accurately. The results of the three studies enhance the theoretical understanding of the neurocognitive processes involved in decision making under risk conditions and open new perspectives for the examination of decision-making competence. A specified theoretical model is suggested, which incorporates the executive sub-processes directing the decision-making process, as well as the role of explicit goal setting and other situational conditions. These adaptions are supposed to help to better explain variances in decision-making competence as they can be found in healthy persons as well as patients with neurological or psychiatric diseases

Sensitive detection of voltage transients using differential intensity surface plasmon resonance system

This paper describes theoretical and experimental study of the fundamentals of using surface plasmon resonance (SPR) for label-free detection of voltage. Plasmonic voltage sensing relies on the capacitive properties of metal-electrolyte interface that are governed by electrostatic interactions between charge carriers in both phases. Externally-applied voltage leads to changes in the free electron density in the surface of the metal, shifting the SPR position. The study shows the effects of the applied voltage on the shape of the SPR curve. It also provides a comparison between the theoretical and experimental response to the applied voltage. The response is presented in a universal term that can be used to assess the voltage sensitivity of different SPR instruments. Finally, it demonstrates the capacity of the SPR system in resolving dynamic voltage signals; a detection limit of 10mV with a temporal resolution of 5ms is achievable. These findings pave the way for the use of SPR systems in the detection of electrical activity of biological cells