Flow Experiences

Abstract

This was a collaborative B.Sc final project between two computer science students, a psychology student and was conducted in partnership with CADIA.The project’s objective was to identify those who experience flow and what individual differences facilitate their flow experiences, as well as to find in what ways the flow state can be studied on a physiological level. This was done by having participants play a video game while connected to a blood pressure and heart rate monitor. The participants also answered a few questionnaires about their flow experiences so as to synchronize the physiological results with whether the participants were experiencing flow or not, as well as personality factors that may influence flow proneness. Participants were also asked to complete a working memory capacity task. Using this information, a game was created with a dynamic difficulty system that uses various artificial intelligence methods to adapt to the players’ skill levels in order to keep them in a state of flow. The participants consisted of both video game players experienced with the flow state and a sample of university students. The scientific value of this is a greater understanding of the concept of flow and its correlation with other factors, as well as facilitating the direct measurement of flow if physiological factors are found.