Flexible and Modular Brain Network Dynamics Characterize Flow Experiences During Media Use: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

Huskey, Richard; Keene, Justin Robert; Wilcox, Shelby; Gong, Xuanjun; Adams, Robyn; Najera, Christina Jimenez

doi:10.1093/joc/jqab044

Cited by 7 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 69 publications

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“…In other words, flow states are partially deliberative, insofar as the embodied cognitive system is still selecting actions that (implicitly) optimise beliefs about states and is driven to do so given the high precision weight those beliefs hold (Friston et al, 2015). This is mirrored by the co-activation of neural networks associated with cognitive control and goal-directedness during flow states (Huskey et al, 2018b(Huskey et al, , 2022.…”

Section: Flow States Habits and Effortlessnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Forgetting ourselves in flow: an active inference account of flow states and how we experience ourselves within them

Parvizi-Wayne,

Sandved-Smith,

Pitliya

et al. 2024

Front. Psychol.

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Flow has been described as a state of optimal performance, experienced universally across a broad range of domains: from art to athletics, gaming to writing. However, its phenomenal characteristics can, at first glance, be puzzling. Firstly, individuals in flow supposedly report a loss of self-awareness, even though they perform in a manner which seems to evince their agency and skill. Secondly, flow states are felt to be effortless, despite the prerequisite complexity of the tasks that engender them. In this paper, we unpick these features of flow, as well as others, through the active inference framework, which posits that action and perception are forms of active Bayesian inference directed at sustained self-organisation; i.e., the minimisation of variational free energy. We propose that the phenomenology of flow is rooted in the deployment of high precision weight over (i) the expected sensory consequences of action and (ii) beliefs about how action will sequentially unfold. This computational mechanism thus draws the embodied cognitive system to minimise the ensuing (i.e., expected) free energy through the exploitation of the pragmatic affordances at hand. Furthermore, given the challenging dynamics the flow-inducing situation presents, attention must be wholly focussed on the unfolding task whilst counterfactual planning is restricted, leading to the attested loss of the sense of self-as-object. This involves the inhibition of both the sense of self as a temporally extended object and higher–order, meta-cognitive forms of self-conceptualisation. Nevertheless, we stress that self-awareness is not entirely lost in flow. Rather, it is pre-reflective and bodily. Our approach to bodily-action-centred phenomenology can be applied to similar facets of seemingly agentive experience beyond canonical flow states, providing insights into the mechanisms of so-called selfless experiences, embodied expertise and wellbeing.

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Section: Flow States Habits and Effortlessnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Forgetting ourselves in flow: an active inference account of flow states and how we experience ourselves within them

Parvizi-Wayne,

Sandved-Smith,

Pitliya

et al. 2024

Front. Psychol.

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“…Thus, although studying brain responses during games and VR will require special consideration, we argue again that the basic model outlined above still applies: As long as fixed content is consumed, one can code it just like one would do for movies or narratives (see above), and to the extent that content varies by person, one can still content-analyze each individual screen-recording using the same principles ( Dmochowski et al, 2018 ; Huskey et al, 2018b , 2022 ; Ki et al, 2020 ).…”

Section: Future Directionsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Integrating media content analysis, reception analysis, and media effects studies

Schmälzle

Huskey

2023

Front. Neurosci.

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Every day, the world of media is at our fingertips, whether it is watching movies, listening to the radio, or browsing online media. On average, people spend over 8 h per day consuming messages from the mass media, amounting to a total lifetime dose of more than 20 years in which conceptual content stimulates our brains. Effects from this flood of information range from short-term attention bursts (e.g., by breaking news features or viral ‘memes’) to life-long memories (e.g., of one’s favorite childhood movie), and from micro-level impacts on an individual’s memory, attitudes, and behaviors to macro-level effects on nations or generations. The modern study of media’s influence on society dates back to the 1940s. This body of mass communication scholarship has largely asked, “what is media’s effect on the individual?” Around the time of the cognitive revolution, media psychologists began to ask, “what cognitive processes are involved in media processing?” More recently, neuroimaging researchers started using real-life media as stimuli to examine perception and cognition under more natural conditions. Such research asks: “what can media tell us about brain function?” With some exceptions, these bodies of scholarship often talk past each other. An integration offers new insights into the neurocognitive mechanisms through which media affect single individuals and entire audiences. However, this endeavor faces the same challenges as all interdisciplinary approaches: Researchers with different backgrounds have different levels of expertise, goals, and foci. For instance, neuroimaging researchers label media stimuli as “naturalistic” although they are in many ways rather artificial. Similarly, media experts are typically unfamiliar with the brain. Neither media creators nor neuroscientifically oriented researchers approach media effects from a social scientific perspective, which is the domain of yet another species. In this article, we provide an overview of approaches and traditions to studying media, and we review the emerging literature that aims to connect these streams. We introduce an organizing scheme that connects the causal paths from media content → brain responses → media effects and discuss network control theory as a promising framework to integrate media content, reception, and effects analyses.

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“…In other words, flow states are partially deliberative, insofar as the embodied cognitive system is still selecting actions that (implicitly) optimise beliefs about states and is driven to do so given the high precision weight those beliefs hold (Friston et al, 2015). This is mirrored by the coactivation of neural networks associated with cognitive control and goal-directedness during flow states (Huskey et al, 2018b;Huskey et al, 2022). That said, the process which elicits flow is not entirely deliberative.…”

Section: Q(u) = σ(E − G)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Forgetting Ourselves in Flow: An Active Inference Account of Flow States and How We Experience Ourselves Within Them

Parvizi-Wayne,

Sandved-Smith,

Pitliya

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Flow has been described as a state of optimal performance, experienced universally across a broad range of domains: from art to athletics, gaming to writing. However, its phenomenal characteristics can, at first glance, be puzzling. Firstly, individuals in flow report a reduction in their sense of self, despite the fact that they perform in a manner which evinces their agency and skill. Secondly, flow states are felt to be effortless, despite the prerequisite complexity of the tasks that engender them. In this paper, we unpick these features of flow, as well as others, through the active inference framework, which posits that action and perception are forms of active Bayesian inference directed at sustained self-organisation; i.e., the minimisation of variational free energy. We propose that the phenomenology of flow is rooted in the deployment of high precision over i) the expected sensory consequences of action and ii) beliefs about how action will sequentially unfold. This computational mechanism thus draws the agent to minimise the ensuing (i.e., expected) free energy through confident pragmatic action. Furthermore, given the challenging dynamics the flow-inducing situation presents, attention must be wholly focussed on the unfolding task whilst counterfactual planning is restricted, leading to the attested attenuation of phenomenal self-modelling. This, in turn, means that both the mechanistic and experiential aspects of flow are highly distinct from those involved in states of dissipative self-modelling, like those engendered by dissociative disorders. More broadly, our approach to action-centred phenomenology can be applied to similar facets of agentive experience beyond canonical flow states, providing insights into the mechanisms of selfless experiences, embodied expertise and wellbeing.

show abstract

Flexible and Modular Brain Network Dynamics Characterize Flow Experiences During Media Use: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

Cited by 7 publications

References 69 publications

Forgetting ourselves in flow: an active inference account of flow states and how we experience ourselves within them

Forgetting ourselves in flow: an active inference account of flow states and how we experience ourselves within them

Integrating media content analysis, reception analysis, and media effects studies

Forgetting Ourselves in Flow: An Active Inference Account of Flow States and How We Experience Ourselves Within Them

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