The Relationship between Executive Functions and Flow in Learning

IntroductionFlow is a highly enjoyable, optimal psychological state people feel when they are so focused on a task that it amounts to complete absorption in an activity (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975). The essential component of flow is the centring of attention on a limited stimulus field with the exclusion of distractions from consciousness (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). According to Csikszentmihalyi (1997), any activity can produce flow as long as there is a balance between the challenging task, which demands intense concentration and commitment, and one's skill level. Flow was found to be related to higher levels of well-being (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975, 1990; 1997; Hunter & Csikszentmihalyi, 2003) and higher achievement (e.g., Bakker, 2008; Jackson, Thomas, Marsh, & Smethurst, 2001). In the educational context, flow was found to be associated with higher levels of commitment to education and progress through the school curriculum (Carli, Delle Fave, & Massimini, 1988; Csikszentmihaly, Rathunde, & Whalen, 1993), and higher academic ach ievement a t coll ege (E ngeser & Rheinberg, 2008; En geser, Rheinberg, Vollmeyer, & Bischoff, 2005). Although there is a lot of research on psychological correlates, studies on biological and neuropsychological correlates of flow have been rare (for a review, see Peifer, 2012). Flow has been found to correlate with cardiovascular, respiratory and EMG measures (de Manzano, Theorell, Harmat, & Ullen, 2010; Gaggioli, Cipresso, Serino, & Riva, 2013), suggesting relative sympathetic enhancement during flow. Electromyography studies found that flow is associated with increased activity in zygomatic major muscle (indicator of positive affect, controls smiling, Larsen, Norris, & Cacioppo, 2003) (de Manzano et al., 2010) and decreased activity in corrugator supercilii (indicator of negative affect, controls frowns) (Kivikangas, 2006), suggesting a positive valence of emotion during flow, i.e. enjoyment. Neural correlates of experimentally induced flow during arithmetic calculation (as indexed by cerebral blood flow activity) includes both increased activity in the left putamen, the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and posterior cortical regions, and decreased neural activity during flow in the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and left amygdala (Ulrich, Keller, Hoenig, Waller, & Groen, 2014). Changes in neural activity in left IFG and left amygdala were correlated with subjectively experienced flow. The authors suggested that an increase of neural activity in the putamen possibly reflects increased outcome probability, and those in the left IFG might reflect a deeper sense of cognitive control. Decrease of neural activity in MPFC was attributed to decreased self-referential processing and decrease of neural activity in amygdala was considered to reflect positive emotionality during flow (Ulrich et al., 2014). Overall, studies have pointed to the importance of studying the biological correlates of flow. However, there is no published study investigating the association between flow and neuropsychological cognitive functions, which are considered to be measures of brain functions and may underlie flow experience. Especially interesting are cognitive control processes that regulate thought and behavior, known under the term executive functions (EF). Executive functions are considered to be a set of correlated but separable control processes that regulate lowerlevel cognitive processes in support of goaldirected behavior (Friedman et al., 2008). Although conceptualizations vary regarding what components of executive functions might be, most frequently EF include: inhibition of automatic, or prepotent response; updating working memory representations, shifting/switching between tasks or mental sets (Friedman et al., 2008); but also include sustained and selective attention (Alvarez & Emory, 2006), and dual-tasking (Logie, Cocchini, Della Sala, & Baddeley, 2004), among others. …