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Abstract：
People are sometimes absorbed into game playing, sports, music, or other activities, being entirely immersed, forgetting time. Such experience is called “Flow (zone) ”, an altered state of consciousness with several distinctive psychological characteristics, including intense attentional concentration, high performance beyond the personal limit, telepresence (immersion), altered sense of time, and pleasure. Our aim is to a) characterize flow experiences psychologically, b) identify neural correlates of solo/team flow, and c) understand contribution of such flow experiences to “Maemuki” (positive and resilient; in Japanese) attitude. In addition, we would like to d) establish personal profiling method to deal with related individual differences across laboratory data and daily life style. The results of our studies can be summarized as the following (so far); 1) Flow is a real, neuro-scientifically identifiable concept. 2) Solo and Tram Flow have distinctively different neural correlates, especially in the beta (>12Hz) and the gamma (>30Hz) ranges. 3) the neural network underling Team Flow has a critical node in left Medial Temporal Gyrus (l-MTG), that receives causal inputs from the Solo Flow and the social (but non-flow) networks. 4) Inter-brain synchrony is observed specifically in the Team Flow state, showing a significantly higher global Norm Phase Lock Value (PLV) than the other states. 5) Novelty/Familiarity seeking behavior in laboratory and daily life can be profiled together with AQ(Autism spectrum Quotient), Flow and Maemuki indices, as a new type of personality trait profiling. 6) Multiple lines of preliminary evidence suggest that the Flow experience contributes causally to form the Maemuki attitude/lifestyle(, and possibly vice versa).
About Dr. Shimojo：
Shinsuke Shimojo is an experimental psychologist/cognitive neuroscientist, Gertrude Baltimore Professor in Division of Biology & Biological Engineering/Computation & Neural Systems at California Institute of Technology. He earned a Master’s Degree from the University Tokyo (1978), and a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1985). Before Caltech, he was an assistant professor in Psychology and Cognitive Behavioral Sciences at the University of Tokyo. His research has focused on sensory perception, its development and adaptation, sensory-motor coordination, multisensory integration, attention and consciousness, emotional decision making, social interaction, and flow etc. He is the recipient of awards, including Santory Prize for Publication in Social Sciences and Humanities (1999), Tokizane Memorial Award (Japanese Neuroscience Society; 2004), the Most Creative Research Award (Japanese Society of Cognitive Science; 2008), Nakayama Grand Prix (2008), Special Award for International Contribution (Japanese Psychological Association, 2016), Tateishi Prize Special Award (Omron/Tateishi Foundation, 2024), Red Dot Award for Design (Germany) “Design Concept” award (with Yamaha Motors Research Team, 2024).