Faculté de Psychologie et Sciences de L'Education, (FPSE), Université de Genève, Boulevard du Pont d'Arve, 40, 1205, Geneva, Switzerland.
Campus Biotech, Chemin des Mines, 9, 1202, Geneva, Switzerland.
Behav Res Methods. 2024 Aug;56(5):5128-5160. doi: 10.3758/s13428-023-02251-w. Epub 2023 Oct 20.
Flow has been defined as a state of full immersion that may emerge when the skills of a person match the challenge of an activity. It is a special case of being on task, as during flow, keeping focused on the task feels effortless. Most experimental investigations of the neural or physiological correlates of flow contrast conditions with different levels of challenge. Yet comparing different levels of challenge that are too distant may trigger states where the participant is off task, such as boredom or frustration. Thus, it remains unclear whether previously observed differences ascribed to flow may rather reflect differences in how much participants were on task-trying their best-across the contrasted conditions. To remedy this, we introduce a method to manipulate flow by contrasting two video game play conditions at personalized levels of difficulty calibrated such that participants similarly tried their best in both conditions. Across three experiments (> 90 participants), higher flow was robustly reported in our high-flow than in our low-flow condition (mean effect size d = 1.31). Cardiac, respiratory, and skin conductance measures confirmed the known difference between a period of rest and the two on-task conditions of high and low flow, but failed to distinguish between these latter two. In light of the conflicting findings regarding the physiological correlates of flow, we discuss the importance of ensuring a low-flow baseline condition that maintains participants on task, and propose that the present method provides a methodological advance toward that goal.
流畅感被定义为一种完全沉浸的状态，当一个人的技能与活动的挑战相匹配时，可能会出现这种状态。它是专注于任务的一种特殊情况，因为在流畅状态下，专注于任务会感觉毫不费力。大多数关于流畅感的神经或生理相关性的实验研究都是将不同难度水平的条件进行对比。然而，比较差异太大的不同挑战水平可能会引发参与者脱离任务的状态，例如无聊或沮丧。因此，目前还不清楚先前观察到的归因于流畅感的差异是否反映了参与者在对比条件下尽力程度的差异。为了解决这个问题，我们引入了一种通过对比两个个性化难度水平的视频游戏来操纵流畅感的方法，使得参与者在两种条件下都尽力而为。在三个实验中（超过 90 名参与者），我们的高流畅感条件比低流畅感条件报告了更高的流畅感（平均效应大小 d=1.31）。心脏、呼吸和皮肤电导测量结果证实了休息期与高流畅感和低流畅感两种任务状态之间的已知差异，但未能区分后两种状态。鉴于关于流畅感生理相关性的相互矛盾的发现，我们讨论了确保保持参与者专注于任务的低流畅感基线条件的重要性，并提出了本方法朝着这一目标的方法学进展。
