Transcript Flow - UCSD Cognitive Science

Flow
An Altered State of Consciousness?
Presented by: Liana Ma
Casey Armstrong
Jessica Shindo
Outline of Presentation
1. Introduction
2. Review of Research
3. Neural Bases of Flow
4. Flow as an ASC
5. Significance
1. Introduction
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“Flow” coined by a psychologist in 1975
• Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Positive aspects of human experience
• joy
• creativity
• the process of total involvement with life
Order in consciousness
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M. Csikszentmihalyi (1990)
“The opposite state from the condition of psychic
entropy is optimal experience. When the information
that keeps coming into awareness is congruent with
goals, psychic energy flows effortlessly. There is no
need to worry, no reason to question one’s adequacy.
But whenever one does stop to think about oneself, the
evidence is encouraging: “You are doing all right.” The
positive feedback strengthens the self, and more
attention is freed to deal with the outer and inner
environment.”
Athletics
Religion
Art, Music
“being in the zone”
“ecstasy,” perhaps nirvana
“aesthetic rapture”
Components of Flow
1.
Challenge-Skill Balance.
A balance between the demands of the situation and personal skills.
2.
Action-Awareness Merging.
Deep involvement that makes actions seem automatic.
3.
Clear Goals.
Certainty about what one is going to do.
4.
Unambiguous Feedback.
Immediate and clear feedback that reaffirms actions.
5.
Concentration on Task at Hand.
Feeling focused.
6.
Sense of Control.
Happens without conscious effort.
7.
Loss of Self-Consciousness.
Concern for self disappears as person becomes one with activity.
8.
Transformation of Time.
Time passes faster, slower, or there is unawareness of time.
9.
Autotelic Experience.
Feeling of doing something for its own sake, with no expectation of future
reward.
2. Review of Research
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1975 - original research and theoretical model
• M. Csikszentmihalyi
Currently studied by
• Psychologists interested in happiness
• Anthropologists interested in evolution
• Sociologists interested in contrast to anomie
Methods
• Interviews, surveys, introspection
• Jackson’s Flow State Scale (FSS)
• Multi-method, quantitative, qualitative
• For sports and physical activity
• Self-rate frequency of components on scale of 1-5
2. Review of Research
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Examples of studies
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Intrinsic motivation
• R. deCharms, 1968, 1976
Flow experience in elite athletes
• S. Jackson, 1996
Flow experience and music education
• L. Custodero, 2002
Flow and Dissociation - Emotional well-being in sports and
recreational and pathological gambling
• B. Wanner et al., 2006
Educational, clinical and commercial applications
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policy reviews, sports journals, art and music magazines,
anthropological sources
3. Neural Bases of Flow
Damasio
Neurotransmitters:
Serotonin
Dopamine
Structures of:
brain stem
hypothalamus
somatosensory cortices
Brain Activation
 Activation of the right superior temporal
gyrus
 Associated with intuitive leaps and sudden insight.
 All neuronal resources are focused on sensory
cortex (occipital, temporal)
 self-related areas are inactive.
Cortical Inactivation
 Feeling of losing oneself
• Inactivation of cortical areas
• Medial PFC, dorsolateral PFC, anterior and
posterior cingulate cortex, inferior parietal
cortex
• Rapid sensorimotor task abolishes
subjective self-awareness experience
Hamilton Study
 Participants who had and had not regularly experienced
flow participated in a flashing stimulus task
 Had not experienced regular flow: cortical activation high
above baseline during stimulus
 Had experienced regular flow: activation decreased
when concentrating
 investment of attention decreased mental effort
 More accurate in sustained attentional task
 reduced mental activity in every channel except the one involved
in concentrating on flashing stimuli, flexibility of attention
Alpha Waves
 Elevated alpha-wave levels in the brain
 Can retain cognitive consciousness for far longer
 Gamma-aminobutyric acid produced
• neurotransmitter that blocks unwanted stimuli
DA Release
 Shifting attention causes release of DA
into midbrain
 High and sustained levels of DA cause
feelings of pleasure and elation
 DA release high with rapid onset
• conscious state of pleasure or ‘high’ is
reported.
4. Flow as an ACS
 Flow State or Flow Experience
 Is the pleasure just a side effect of flow?
 Enjoyable by definition, but also other dimensions
(Jackson)
 Is it the same as a peak experience? (Jackson)
 Or, is it an emotional state?
 Akin to a “state of rage” or something like that.
 (Damasio) A state of emotions that has “important
repercussions on the way your cognitive apparatus
operates.”
Losing Your Self
 Brain shuts down introspection as it enters
flow state. (Goldberg 2006)
 Consciousness as a “dialogue between
specific self-related prefontal regions and
sensory cortex.” (Baars et. al)
 (Crick & Koch; 2003) Front of the brain has a
“homunculus” like function where it observes
the sensory back of the brain
Flow vs…
 Biofeedback:
 More control and conscious effort
 Action and awareness are separate
 Meditation
 Is generally induced, as opposed to spontaneous
 Separation of Self from Body: Dissociation
 Hypnosis
 Similar loss of control and “consciousness” but
different controller.
 Displacement of Self: the Hidden observer
Being “in the zone”
 It can happen ANYWHERE to
ANYONE - no training.
 But, it happens the easiest (and
generally most studied in sports.
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QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
5. Significance
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M. Csikszentmihalyi
“Emotions are in some respect the most subjective elements of
consciousness, since it is only the person himself or herself who can
tell whether he or she truly experiences love, shame, gratitude, or
happiness. Yet an emotion is also the most objective content of the
mind, because the ‘gut feeling’ we experience when we are in love, or
ashamed, or scared, or happy, is generally more real to us than what
we observe in the world outside, or whatever we learn from science
or logic.”
“Thus we often find ourselves in the paradoxical position of being like
behavioral psychologists when we look at other people, discounting
what they say and trusting only what they do; whereas when we look
at ourselves we are like phenomenologist, taking our inner feelings
more seriously than outside events or overt actions.”
Discussion
5. Significance
The approach
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Do self-reports of internal states (a.k.a. “introspective
behaviorism”) lack scientific validity?
Is it too fleeting to study, or do some individuals chronically
experience flow (as in the case of studying déjà vu)?
M. Csikszentmihalyi says we should represent consciousness as
phenomenological (dealing directly with events/phenomena) as
we experience and interpret them, rather than focusing on the
anatomical structures, neurochemical processes, or unconscious
purposes that make the events possible
Lesions, pathology vs. positive aspects
Sources
Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly, and Isabella S. Csikszentmihalyi. Optimal Experience: Psychological Studies of
Flow in Consciousness. London: Cambridge UP, 1992.
Custodero, Lori A. “Seeking Challenge, Finding Skill: Flow Experience and Music Education.” Arts Education
Policy Review 103.3 (2002): 3-9.
Jackson, Susan A. “Toward a Conceptual Understanding of the Flow Experience in Elite Athletes.” Research
Quarterly for Exercise and Sport 67.1 (1996): 76-90.
Tenenbaum, G., Fogarty, G., and Jackson, S. “The Flow Experience: A Rasch Analysis of Jackson’s Flow
State Scale.” Journal of Outcome Measurement 3.3 (1999): 278-294.
Wanner, Brigitte, Robert Ladouceur, Amelie Auclair, and Frank Vitaro. “Flow and Dissociation: Examination
of Mean Levels, Cross-links, and Links to Emotional Well-Being across Sports and Recreational and
Pathological Gambling.” J Gambl Stud 22 (2006): 289-304.
Sources Cont.
Hunter, Jeremy & Csikszentmihalyl, Mihaly. “The Phenomenology of
Body-Mind: The Contrasting Cases of Flow in Sports and
Contemplation.” Anthropology of Consciousness. Sept/Dec 2000, Vol.
11, no. 3-4, pp 5-24.
Goldberg, Iian & Harel & Malach. “When the Brain Loses Its Self:
Prefrontal Inactivation During Sensorimotor Processing.” Neuron. April
20, 2006, Vol. 50, pp 329-339.
Jackson, Susan A. “Toward a conceptual understanding on the flow
experience in elite athletes” Research Quarterly for Exercise and
Sport. Vol. 67, No. 1, pp 78-90.
 Csikszentmihalyi, Mihalyi. Flow. New York: Harper &
Row, 1990.
 Goldberg, IIan I., Harel, Michal., Malach, Rafael. “
When
the Brain Loses Its self: Prefrontal
Inactivation
During
Sensorimotor
Processing.” Neuron 50.
(2006) : 329-339.
 Damasio, Antonio. Personal Interview. 2000.