A growing body of research is investigating physiological correlates of flow. First findings suggest an association between flow proneness and availability of dopamine D2 receptors in the striatum and of state flow with the nigrostriatal dopamine system. It was found that the spontaneous eye blink rate (EBR) is an indirect marker for central dopaminergic function, particularly in the striatum: high EBR is associated with high levels of dopamine. Based on the described association of dopamine and flow, we tested if EBR can be used as an indicator of flow.
We investigated 64 participants who played the computer game Pacman. The EBR of the participants was assessed using Electromyography. After each level, participants answered the flow short scale to assess their subjective flow-experience.
We found an overall negative association between flow-experience and EBR during the gameplay. While this result seems contradictive at the first sight, we assume that the effect of visual attention on EBR dominated the effect of dopaminergic activity on EBR. However, as we found a significant negative association between EBR during gameplay and flow, we can contribute a new and useful physiological / behavioral measure to assess flow in real time during activities.