# Exploring the Role of Distraction in Weak Flow-Performance Link Based on VR Searching Tasks
## 3 A VR Task Paradigm for Flow Study  
In flow studies, experimental manipulations for inducing flow are essentially based on a variation of the difficulty levels of the respective task. The difficulty should be either experienced as too low, too high, or as largely compatible with the individual's skill level [18]. According to this general logic, several previous paradigms were proposed by using different types of tasks (i.e., in the math, chess, knowledge quiz, and mental arithmetic paradigms). Flow studies in VEs also induce flow through manipulating difficulty levels of various tasks [19], but there is no relatively fixed task paradigm. There may be two existing problems:  
Figure 1: The weak association model (WAM) developed from [2]. Level of task difficulty is hard to design properly. It should be noted that the specific operationalization used to vary the difficulty levels of the task affects the quality of flow experience during task engagement. Therefore, it is crucial to take into consideration that participants may frequently experience \"interruption from flow\", \"give up\", or not engage in the task any more after some experiences of failure. The ideal overload experience should reflect a continued struggle instead of a sudden change. Although some flow task paradigms have attempted to solve this problem, it still exists (e.g., in the mental arithmetic algorithm, although the algorithm is designed in a way that the difficulty level decreases--to a still relatively appropriate level--after a certain number of failures, the individual has experienced these failures and interrupted the flow state). Existing task paradigms are not applicable to study the problem of weak flow-performance link, especially the role of distraction. One reason is that the existing flow task paradigms often avoid the emergence of distraction and therefore do not include the manipulation of distractors. Another reason is that some existing classic paradigms (e.g., in the math, chess, knowledge quizzes, and mental arithmetic paradigms) are not suitable for flow studies in VR activities, and there is still no paradigm sophisticated enough for a VR task. To address these problems, a VR task paradigm for flow study is proposed in this paper. This paradigm should: (1) ensure the overload experience to reflect a continued struggle (only in this way can a continuous and fluent flow experience be induced) and (2) be able to manipulate distraction. Inspired by past studies [20; 21], we proposed a novel task paradigm that is called the VR searching paradigm. The task paradigm is applicable to VR activities, and especially suitable for flow studies in the VEs. The principle of this paradigm is given as follows:  
This paradigm is based on the LT and limited resource theory. In the VEs, a primary task with stable challenge level should run throughout the whole process consistently. The primary task here is a visual search and collection task when navigating in VR. Using this task, the difficulty is steady and easily matches the individual's skill level, i.e., if the skill level is high, they will find the targets faster, if the skill level is low, they will find the targets slower. Therefore, it guarantees the task challenge's good adaptivity to individuals' skill during the entire task, and it is universal for people with different levels, unlike the abovementioned paradigms that require individuals to have a certain background of knowledge. When performing the primary task, there are potential distractors that may distract the user's attention and interest (see Figure 2). According to the manipulation of distractors (such as manipulating the type, fun, intensity, or number of the distractors), different levels of attention allocation will be induced, and this may lead to different levels of attention when performing the primary task. The more distractors there are, or the more attractive/disruptive they are, the more attention may be transferred, thus the flow from performing the primary task will decrease.