Department of Psychiatry, University of Ulm, Leimgrubenweg 12-14, 89075 Ulm, Germany.
Department of Psychology and Education, University of Ulm, 89069 Ulm, Germany.
Neuroimage. 2014 Feb 1;86:194-202. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2013.08.019. Epub 2013 Aug 17.
Flow refers to a positive, activity-associated, subjective experience under conditions of a perceived fit between skills and task demands. Using functional magnetic resonance perfusion imaging, we investigated the neural correlates of flow in a sample of 27 human subjects. Experimentally, in the flow condition participants worked on mental arithmetic tasks at challenging task difficulty which was automatically and continuously adjusted to individuals' skill level. Experimental settings of "boredom" and "overload" served as comparison conditions. The experience of flow was associated with relative increases in neural activity in the left anterior inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and the left putamen. Relative decreases in neural activity were observed in the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and the amygdala (AMY). Subjective ratings of the flow experience were significantly associated with changes in neural activity in the IFG, AMY, and, with trend towards significance, in the MPFC. We conclude that neural activity changes in these brain regions reflect psychological processes that map on the characteristic features of flow: coding of increased outcome probability (putamen), deeper sense of cognitive control (IFG), decreased self-referential processing (MPFC), and decreased negative arousal (AMY).
流畅体验是指在技能与任务需求相匹配的条件下，个体所经历的积极的、与活动相关的主观体验。本研究使用功能磁共振灌注成像技术，对 27 名被试的流畅体验的神经关联进行了研究。实验中，在流畅体验条件下，被试者需要完成具有挑战性的、难度自动且持续适配个体技能水平的心理算术任务。“无聊”和“过载”的实验条件作为比较条件。研究结果表明，流畅体验与左侧额下回（IFG）和左侧壳核（putamen）的相对脑区活动增加有关，与内侧前额叶皮层（MPFC）和杏仁核（AMY）的相对脑区活动减少有关。流畅体验的主观评分与 IFG、AMY 的脑区活动变化显著相关，与 MPFC 的脑区活动变化呈显著相关趋势。研究结论认为，这些脑区的神经活动变化反映了与流畅体验特征相关的心理过程：增加的结果概率编码（壳核）、更深的认知控制感（IFG）、自我参照加工减少（MPFC）和负性唤醒减少（AMY）。
