Q&A: K-State profs crack out the flow on Rock Band

If you’ve ever sat down to play a video game for a few minutes and end up staying for a few hours, you’re not necessarily wasting your life (your parents might disagree); you might actually be experiencing a state of mental optimization known as flow.

Clive Fullagar, a professor in Kansas State University’s psychology department, and Associate Professor Patrick Knight have designed an experiment to allows students to sit down, plug in and crack out to Rock Band. Their goal: to discover what brings on flow, and how to translate that state into other tasks.

The Pitch caught up with Knight for a few questions about the research, recruiting study subject, and jamming out to the Allman Brothers.

Pitch: So what’s the point of this experiment of yours?

Knight: We’re trying to look at the issue of people being absorbed in tasks. Some people call that experience flow.

What’s that?

It’s when someone is so engaged in a task and they’re so involved in it that they sort of lose track of other things. They lose track of time. It’s believed by a lot of people that this sort of experience is related to peak performance and performing better than they might otherwise. It’s believed that people experience this state of flow when the challenge of the task is they’re performing is appropriate to their skill level.