Therefore, flow is regarded as the optimal experience that promotes intense commitment or an individual's development in a certain activity. The common characteristics of flow ( Nakamura and Csikszentmihalyi, 2009) are summarized as two conditions of flow and six subjective states of flow as shown in Table 1.įlow was originally found in studies that examined the phenomenological aspects of autotelic or intrinsically motivated activities ( Nakamura and Csikszentmihalyi, 2009). Flow was investigated in a broad spectrum of activities for example, chess playing ( Abuhamdeh and Csikszentmihalyi, 2009) and rock climbing ( Fave et al., 2003). According to Csikszentmihalyi (2000), who originally proposed this concept, flow is the “holistic sensation that people feel when they act with total involvement.” The state of flow is characterized by a sense of intrinsic reward experienced during immersive engagement in an activity. The most promising optimal psychological state is the flow experience proposed by Csikszentmihalyi (2000). On the other hand, an optimal psychological state that contributes to these goals can be a common promotional factor across various types of activity. In general, the development of an individual's ability through training or performance, specific to each activity, enables better performance. In any task, for better performance, performing at one's full potential in individual situations and obtaining the required skills in advance are important. The findings of this study suggest the possibility of distinguishing the flow state from other states using multiple EEG activities and indicate the need for other physiological indicators corresponding to the other aspects of flow experience. The former may be related to a high level of cognitive control and immersion in task, and the latter suggests that the load on the working memory was not excessive. From the results, the flow state was characterized by increased theta activities in the frontal areas and moderate alpha activities in the frontal and central areas. These EEG activities correlated with self-reported flow experience, especially items related to the concentration on the task and task difficulty. Regarding the EEG data, theta activities in the frontal areas were higher in the Flow and the Overload conditions than in the Boredom condition, and alpha activity in the frontal areas and the right central area gradually increased depending on the task difficulty. As expected, the ratings on the subjective evaluation items representing the flow state were the highest in the Flow condition. Furthermore, the correlations between subjective flow items and EEG activity were examined. Post-trial self-report of the flow state and EEG during task execution were measured and compared among three conditions (Boredom, Flow, and Overload) that had different levels of task difficulty. A total of 16 participants (10 males, 6 females) participated in the experiment that employed a mental arithmetic task developed in a previous study. The present study utilized an electroencephalogram (EEG) during an experimentally evoked flow state and examined the possibility of objective measurement of immediate flow. To verify the positive effects of flow and develop a method to utilize it, the establishment of a reliable measurement of the flow state is essential.
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