Using Logs Data to Identify When Software Engineers Experience Flow or Focused Work

Beyond self-report data, we lack reliable and non-intrusive methods for identifying flow. However, taking a step back and acknowledging that flow occurs during periods of focus gives us the opportunity to make progress towards measuring flow by isolating focused work. Here, we take a mixed-methods approach to design a logs-based metric that leverages machine learning and a comprehensive collection of logs data to identify periods of related actions (indicating focus), and validate this metric against self-reported time in focus or flow using diary data and quarterly survey data. Our results indicate that we can determine when software engineers at a large technology company experience focused work which includes instances of flow. This metric speaks to engineering work, but can be leveraged in other domains to non-disruptively measure when people experience focus. Future research can build upon this work to identify signals associated with other facets of flow

The Repetition of Video Game Music, its Impact on Video Game Enjoyment, and How Best to Manage it.

Video game music (VGM) has a functional role in video games which can cause it to be looped and repeated as it accompanies the player around the game world. This has an impact on players’ video game enjoyment and engagement when players become overfamiliar with repeating VGM. There have been numerous approaches and techniques implemented in video games to attempt to conceal, reduce, and remove repetition of VGM. However, familiarity through repeated exposure to VGM has a positive functional role for players with regards to player feedback. This constructivist study focuses on the phenomenon of VGM repetition and its impact on the complex concept of video game enjoyment, and gauges how best to manage the phenomenon using various approaches, and techniques, used to conceal, reduce, and remove repetition of VGM. The current study conducted qualitative interviews with actual players who believed that VGM was important to their enjoyment of video games. A codebook was developed from these interviews and used to interpret the data using heuristic inquiry. Findings show that players understand the reasons for VGM repetition and believe that their video game enjoyment is contextually dependent on whether repetition improves their engagement. Players are generally tolerant of VGM repetition but can become overfamiliar with VGM when it repeats, which has an impact on their video game enjoyment. However, players are more appreciative of the functional role that repeating VGM has with regards to feedback as they become more familiar with the repeating VGM. Ultimately a pragmatic worldview is held by the author who believes that this study could be beneficial to other VGM research and the video game industry because it focuses on the perspectives of the players themselves

Exploiting physiological changes during the flow experience for assessing virtual-reality game design.

Immersive experiences are considered the principal attraction of video games. Achieving a healthy balance between the game's demands and the user's skills is a particularly challenging goal. However, it is a coveted outcome, as it gives rise to the flow experience – a mental state of deep concentration and game engagement. When this balance fractures, the player may experience considerable disinclination to continue playing, which may be a product of anxiety or boredom. Thus, being able to predict manifestations of these psychological states in video game players is essential for understanding player motivation and designing better games. To this end, we build on earlier work to evaluate flow dynamics from a physiological perspective using a custom video game. Although advancements in this area are growing, there has been little consideration given to the interpersonal characteristics that may influence the expression of the flow experience. In this thesis, two angles are introduced that remain poorly understood. First, the investigation is contextualized in the virtual reality domain, a technology that putatively amplifies affective experiences, yet is still insufficiently addressed in the flow literature. Second, a novel analysis setup is proposed, whereby the recorded physiological responses and psychometric self-ratings are combined to assess the effectiveness of our game's design in a series of experiments. The analysis workflow employed heart rate and eye blink variability, and electroencephalography (EEG) as objective assessment measures of the game's impact, and self-reports as subjective assessment measures. These inputs were submitted to a clustering method, cross-referencing the membership of the observations with self-report ratings of the players they originated from. Next, this information was used to effectively inform specialized decoders of the flow state from the physiological responses. This approach successfully enabled classifiers to operate at high accuracy rates in all our studies. Furthermore, we addressed the compression of medium-resolution EEG sensors to a minimal set required to decode flow. Overall, our findings suggest that the approaches employed in this thesis have wide applicability and potential for improving game designing practices

Operationalising and measuring flow in video games

This paper explores the obstacles associated with designing video game levels for the purpose of objectively measuring flow. We sought to create three video game levels capable of inducing a flow state, an overload state (low-flow), and a boredom state (low-flow). A pilot study, in which participants self-reported levels of flow after playing all three game levels, was undertaken. Unexpected results point to the challenges of operationalising flow in video game research, obstacles in experimental design for invoking flow and low-flow, concerns about flow as a construct for measuring video game enjoyment, the applicability of self-report flow scales, and the experience of flow in video game play despite substantial challenge-skill differences