Flow—a state of effortless immersion often experienced during video games—shows a moderate inverse relationship with global brain entropy, meaning the brain is less disordered during flow than during boredom or frustration. Synchronization and metastability do not explain flow. Boredom and frustration each display distinct patterns of brain dynamics. These findings integrate earlier observations about prefrontal activity and network synchrony into a single dynamical-systems framework, identifying complexity-based markers that could help map the neural basis of media-related benefits.
Flow—the experience of effortless immersion—shows an inverse relationship with global brain entropy during a video game task, meaning less disorderly brain activity corresponds with more flow. Boredom and frustration each display distinct patterns of brain dynamics. These findings bring together earlier observations about prefrontal activity and network synchrony into a single framework and suggest complexity-based measures could help map the neural basis of media-related benefits.