EEG Correlates of the Flow State: A Combination of Increased Frontal Theta and Moderate Frontocentral Alpha Rhythm in the Mental Arithmetic Task

Abstract

Flow experience is a subjective state experienced during holistic involvement in a certain activity, which has been reported to function as a factor promoting motivation, skill development, and better performance in the activity. 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. The present study utilized an electroencephalogram (EEG) during an experimentally evoked flow state and examined the possibility of objective measurement of immediate flow. A total of 16 participants (10 males, 6 females) participated in the experiment that employed a mental arithmetic task developed in a previous study. 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. Furthermore, the correlations between subjective flow items and EEG activity were examined. As expected, the ratings on the subjective evaluation items representing the flow state were the highest in the Flow condition. 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. These EEG activities correlated with self-reported flow experience, especially items related to the concentration on the task and task difficulty. 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. 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. 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.

Distinct neural markers for intentional and unintentional task unrelated thought

“…More generally, our findings suggest that the degree of intentionality during off-task thought can be understood as the interplay between top-down and bottom-up features. We found that when participants were engaged in deliberate off-task thought, alpha activity was increased, a pattern that is often observed when individuals are deliberately engaged in internal tasks 71,110,118 , and may reflect patterns of top down inhibition of irrelevant sensory input. In contrast, periods of spontaneous off-task thought were linked to evoked response that may indicate the higher order processing of sensory input and conflict monitoring necessary to detect failures in task set.…”

“…Generally speaking, increased alpha can be seen as an index of the degree to which sensory input is being inhibited in favor of more task-relevant information. In contrast, theta and more specifically frontomedial theta (FMT) was found to be a strong correlate of cognitive effort or mental fatigue in sustained attention 67,68 and to be upregulated when performing tasks with high demands on externally directed attention 69,70 or during flow, as state commonly associated with a deep engagement with the task at hand and subjective loss of reflective selfconsciousness 71 . With respect to mind-wandering theta activity was found to be inversely correlated with blood-oxygen-level dependent activity in the default-mode network 72 (DMN), a region extensively linked with internally directed attention 73,74 .…”

Frequency and Power Analysis of Eeg Theta Activity During Different Mathematical and Verbal Task in Males

“…It was found that there was a power increase in EEG theta bands in short-term memory processing processes on 10 women [12]. In the study conducted on 16 participants, it was stated that there was an increase in frontal theta rhythms during mental arithmetic tasks [13]. In our study, it was observed that theta activity in the numerical tasks with the correct answer decreased compared to the theta activity with the wrong answer.…”

On the Feasibility of Using an Ear-EEG to Develop an Endogenous Brain-Computer Interface

“…So, it should be noted that this study is first to quantitatively compare the SNR of ear-EEG with those of other brain areas in terms of alpha activity increase related to EC. The comparison presented in this study could provide more detailed information about the degree of utilization of ear-EEG as compared to scalp-EEG in developing EEG applications based on alpha activity, such as brain authentication based on the resting state [ 62 ], attention monitoring [ 63 , 64 ], and sleep detection [ 65 ].…”