Computing Flow Experience Based on Physiological Signals: A Systematic Literature Review

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.