Key result
Physiological signal-based methods offer a more objective and real-time approach to measuring flow experience in human-computer interaction compared to traditional subjective measurements.
Why the study?
Despite scattered studies on measuring flow experience using physiological signals, a systematic review of research in this field is absent.
Systematic Review
This systematic review synthesizes existing research on using physiological signals to objectively measure flow experience in human-computer interaction.
Provides consolidated framework for objective flow measurement in HCI; extends research by mapping signals, models, and methods for future studies.
Flow experience is a key user experience in human-computer interaction (HCI).Compared with traditional subjective measurements, physiological signal-based methods (i.e.physiological computation of flow experience) can measure flow experience in a more objective and real-time way without interrupting the ongoing activity of the user.Despite scattered studies, a systematic review of research in this field is absent.Synthesizing key aspects of this field, including the conceptualization of flow experience, prevalent theoretical models, foundational research steps for experiment, computerized tasks for inducing flow, commonly used physiological signals, methods for analyzing flow state, and application in HCI.Finally, we discuss the potential of this field to propel HCI and user experience evaluation technologies, while projecting future research avenues.This paper is expected to help researchers grasp existing work in physiological signal-based flow computing and inspire subsequent explorations.
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Zhou et al. (2025) conducted a systematic review in Flow experience in human-computer interaction. Physiological signal-based methods vs. Traditional subjective measurements was evaluated. Physiological signal-based methods offer a more objective and real-time approach to measuring flow experience in human-computer interaction compared to traditional subjective measurements.
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