Flow Experiences During Visuomotor Skill Acquisition Reflect Deviation From a Power-Law Learning Curve, but Not Overall Level of Skill

Cowley, Benjamin Ultan; Palomäki, Jussi; Tammi, Tuisku; Frantsi, Roosa; Inkilä, Ville-Pekka; Lehtonen, Noora; Pölönen, Pasi; Vepsäläinen, Juha; Lappi, Otto

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01126

Cited by 11 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…The version used here is based on an existing PANAS translation which was slightly modified by PP and MT. The FSS used was the translation used in Cowley et al (2019) with some slight edits.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effect of Meditative Movement on Affect and Flow in Qigong Practitioners

2019

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Qigong is a Meditative Movement exercise that consists of mindful movements, regulation of breathing and attentional control. In this study we investigated whether Qigong practice might be associated with the affect and flow of its practitioners during the exercise. Although practitioners of Meditative Movement anecdotally describe flow-like experiences and strong effects on affect there are only a few empirical studies that focus on acute effects of Qigong practice on affect, and to our knowledge none on flow. Understanding these phenomena could shed new light on the interrelationship between body movement and the embodied mind. Self-reported affect and flow of qigong practitioners (N = 19) was probed in four qigong sessions, 1 week apart, each lasting about an hour. We used the PANAS (Positive And Negative Affect Schedule) to measure self-reported affect pre- and post-session. Additionally, open-ended questions were used to further inquire the specific quality of the post-session affect. Flow was measured using the Flow Short Scale, twice during each Qigong session and once after it. Our results confirm previous studies that Qigong practice shifts affect toward positive valence. Content analysis of the open-ended questions further revealed that the resulting experience can be described as restful, relaxed, happy, balanced, and clear. Although the lack of a control group/condition preclude drawing firm causal conclusions, our results indicate that Qigong practice produced flow already 20 min into the session, and that flow state intensified at 40 and 60 min. Future directions for studying affect and flow in meditative exercise are discussed.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effect of Meditative Movement on Affect and Flow in Qigong Practitioners

2019

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“…The improved performance was manifested in improved temporal perception (i.e., reduced JND scores) and significantly improved spatial attentional control (i.e., reduced PSS scores) when flow states were highest. In a recent longitudinal experiment by Cowley et al (2019), where flow was induced with the help of a video game-like high-speed steering task, possible trial-wise fluctuations of performance due to flow were found, suggesting that performance was enhanced when participants experienced increased flow. These results dovetail with our findings, and might likewise indicate a short-term modulation of information processing and performance by flow.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Flow States and Associated Changes in Spatial and Temporal Processing

et al. 2020

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Improved perception during high performance is a commonly reported phenomenon. However, it is difficult to determine whether these reported changes experienced during flow states reflect veridical changes in perceptual processing, or if instead are related to some form of memory or response bias. Flow is a state in which an individual experiences high focus and involvement in a specific task, and typically experiences a lack of distractibility, a disordered sense of time, great enjoyment, and increased levels of performance. The present pre-registered study investigated 27 athletes and musicians using a temporal order judgement (TOJ) task before and after a sports or music performance over three sessions. Participants' flow experiences were surveyed in order to measure how modulations of flow over successive performances potentially modulates spatiotemporal perception and processing. Hierarchical linear modeling showed a positive moderation of subjectively experienced flow and performance on post-measures of a TOJ task. Specifically, the higher the subjective flow experience of the sport or music performance was rated, the better the participant performed in the postperformance TOJ task compared to the pre-performance TOJ task. The findings of the present study provide a more comprehensive explanation of human perception during flow at high level performances and suggest important insights regarding the possibility of modulated temporal processing and spatial attention.

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“…The Flow Short Scale reflects Rheinberg's [73] conceptualisation of flow, which does not include autotelicity, and loads onto two underlying dimensions of fluency of performance and absorption. The Flow Short Scale has tended to be more widely used within gaming studies and those employing psychophysiological measures, and was used in eight of the reviewed studies, five in gaming [47,55,58,60,62] and three in sport [61,68,69]. The Flow State Scale and Dispositional Flow Scale have been more prominent within sport research and were used in eight studies, all of which used sporting tasks [45,54,59,63,[65][66][67]70].…”

Section: Methods Of Measuring Flowmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Studies have generally not controlled for prior or 'normal' performance, so if flow is more likely in more skilled performers then a flow-performance relationship could emerge for this reason alone. One article from the review, Cowley et al [58], suggests that this is, however, not the case. In a longitudinal design Cowley and colleagues showed that there was no change in the experience of flow as participants acquired expertise in a driving game.…”

Section: Conceptual and Methodological Issuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The approach of manipulating the demands of the game in order to provide tasks that are too easy, too hard and optimally challenging was a common method of manipulating flow in the gaming studies [44,55,60,62,64]. A wide range of gaming tasks were used, including Tetris (a block stacking game) [44,64], simulated driving [58,62] and Call of Duty (a first-person shooter) [46].…”

Section: Tasksmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A systematic review and meta-analysis of the relationship between flow states and performance

Harris¹,

Allen²,

Vine³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Background: Flow is a peak experiential state, during which athletes report focused concentration, effortless performance and enhanced enjoyment. Flow, or ‘the zone’, has received particular interest within sporting circles because flow experiences appear to be associated with peak athletic performances. Yet, the nature of the flow-performance relationship is not straightforward and is yet to be critically reviewed. Objectives: This systematic review and meta-analysis sought to examine the empirical evidence for a flow-performance relationship, examine potential mechanisms, and assess the quality of current evidence. Methods: A PRISMA guided systematic review was conducted in May 2020. Peer-reviewed articles, published in English language journals, which examined the relationship between flow and performance were searched for, using five online databases. The results of the studies were collated into a narrative synthesis as well as a meta-analysis. Results: Twenty articles met the inclusion criteria, featuring 22 studies that were appropriate for meta-analysis. The pooled effect size (r = 0.31, 95% CI [0.24; 0.38]) indicated that across a range of sporting and gaming tasks there was a consistent medium-sized relationship between flow experience and task performance. A number of mechanisms were proposed to explain this relationship, but none were supported by convincing empirical evidence. Conclusions: Performance enhancing effects appear highly likely given the functional mental state that arises during flow. Yet, current evidence is unable to determine the exact nature of the flow-performance relationship, or the mechanisms which mediate this effect. A number of conceptual and methodological challenges

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Flow Experiences During Visuomotor Skill Acquisition Reflect Deviation From a Power-Law Learning Curve, but Not Overall Level of Skill

Cited by 11 publications

References 34 publications

Effect of Meditative Movement on Affect and Flow in Qigong Practitioners

Effect of Meditative Movement on Affect and Flow in Qigong Practitioners

Flow States and Associated Changes in Spatial and Temporal Processing

A systematic review and meta-analysis of the relationship between flow states and performance

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