If you've ever sat down to play a video game for a few minutes and end up staying for a few hours, you're not necessarily wasting your life (your parents might disagree); you might actually be experiencing a state of mental optimization known as flow.
Clive Fullagar, a professor in Kansas State University's psychology department, and Associate Professor Patrick Knight have designed an experiment to allows students to sit down, plug in and crack out to Rock Band. Their goal: to discover what brings on flow, and how to translate that state into other tasks.
The Pitch caught up with Knight for a few questions about the research, recruiting study subject, and jamming out to the Allman Brothers.
Pitch: So what's the point of this experiment of yours?
Knight: We're trying to look at the issue of people being absorbed in tasks. Some people call that experience flow.
What's that?
It's when someone is so engaged in a task and they're so involved in it that they sort of lose track of other things. They lose track of time. It's believed by a lot of people that this sort of experience is related to peak performance and performing better than they might otherwise. It's believed that people experience this state of flow when the challenge of the task is they're performing is appropriate to their skill level.
How do video games fit into this?
It occurred to us that with a game like Guitar Hero or Rock Band,
we could more easily manipulate the task by changing the song or the
song parameters so we could match up people's experience with the game
or their skill level with the challenge presented by the task.
How had you heard of Rock Band?
My son had just gotten Rock Band. There are several ways we can manipulate the difficulty and provide several types of fairly objective performance measures.
Have you played?
I think we've all been in there a little familiarizing ourselves with the task.
That sounds like a scientific way of saying you've been cracking out. Is there a particular song that you like to rock out to?
There's an old song by the Allman Brothers, "Ramblin' Man," that I enjoy.
I imagine it's been easy to recruit students?
That has been one of the advantages here. They usually sign up when
they have a free hour. We have seen that people are surprised when,
after an hour, they're done. That's consistent with the idea of flow.
They lose track of time; they're enjoying themselves.
What have you guys discovered?
We're finding, indeed, as people are presented with tasks where the
challenge is appropriate, they are reporting more enjoyment. They're
also performing maximally at those levels. In terms of applying this to
non-game kinds of situations, and general life situations, the hope is
that if we can induce a state of flow it will be intrinsic motivation.
The task will enjoyable in and of itself and help in terms of
motivating people to perform necessary tasks -- even a task that's not
terribly enjoyable. It might be more enjoyable if it's challenging and
it allows a person to use their skills.
Showing 1-1 of 1
like
dislike
