Exploring Flow Psychophysiology in Knowledge Work

We report on a first exploration of a new paradigm to study flow physiology in knowledge work that we call controlled experience sampling (cESM) in order to build a bridge for flow physiology research to more unstructured tasks. Results show that the approach elicits a consistent flow experience with intensities as least as high as in an established difficulty-manipulated math task. Yet, significantly lower stress perceptions and heart rate variability (HRV) responses are found in the cESM approach which highlights gaps and consequences for the diagnostic potential of HRV features for the understanding of flow physiology and automated flow observation in bio-adaptive systems.