Investigation of optimal gameplay using functional near-infrared spectroscopy

Abstract

In this study, we used functional near-infrared spectroscopy to investigate the relationship between flow and prefrontal cortex activity during gameplay. During the experiment, participants played a video game with four difficulty levels that are set according to the speed at which objects fall. Results show that subjective flow is highest during gameplay at normal difficulty and lowest at extreme difficulty. Additionally, as the degree of flow increases, the activity of part of the right prefrontal cortex decreases, while playing at an easy difficulty level.