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IMMErsION, FLOW, AND PrEsENcE
responses of players influence immersion and
what measures of player affect are most suitable
to evaluate immersion.
Immersion is seen in some literature (Sweetser
& Wyeth, 2005) - based on qualitative analysis
- as an enabler of a fleeting experience of peak
performance labeled flow (Csíkszentmihályi,
1990; Nakamura & Csíkszentmihályi, 2002).
Flow is a little understood, but often-used expe-
riential concept for describing one kind of game
experience. Some examples from game studies
and human-computer-interaction literature try to
use flow for analyzing successful game design
features of games (Cowley et al., 2008; Sweetser
& Wyeth, 2005). However, originally, flow was
conceived by Csíkszentmihályi (1975) on the basis
of studies of intrinsically motivated behaviour
of artists, chess players, musicians, and sports
players. This group was found to be rewarded
by executing actions
per se
, experiencing high
enjoyment and fulfilment in the activity itself
rather than, for example, being motivated by future
achievement. Csíkszentmihályi describes flow
as a peak experience, the “holistic sensation that
people feel when they act with total involvement”
(p. 36). Thus, complete mental absorption in an
activity is fundamental to this concept, which
ultimately makes flow an experience mainly
found in situations with high cognitive loading
accompanied by a feeling of pleasure. According
to a more recent description from Nakamura and
Csíkszentmihályi (2002), it should be noted that
for entering flow, two conditions should be met:
(1) a matching of challenges or action opportuni-
ties to an individual's skill and (2) clear and close
goals with immediate feedback about progress.
Flow itself can be described through the follow-
ing manifested qualities (which are admittedly
too fuzzy for a clear evaluation using subjective
or objective methods): (1) concentration focuses
on present moment, (2) action and consciousness
merge, (3) self-awareness is lost, (4) one is in full
control over one's actions, (5) temporal perception
is distorted, and (6) doing the activity is rewarding
In the fields of game science, media psychology,
communication and computer science, many
studies are concerned with uncovering experi-
ences evoked by playing digital games. There
is a lot of work directed towards investigating
the potentials, definition, and limitations of im-
mersion in digital games (Douglas & Hargadon,
2000; Ermi & Mäyrä, 2005; Jennett et al., 2008;
Murray, 1995). A major challenge of studying
immersion is defining what exactly is meant by
the term “immersion” and how does it relate to
similar game experience phenomena such as flow
(Csíkszentmihályi, 1990), cognitive absorption
(Agarwal & Karahanna, 2000) and presence
(Lombard & Ditton, 1997; Slater, 2002).
From Immersion to Flow
and Presence
In a very comprehensive effort, Jennett et al. (2008;
Slater, 2002) give an extensive conceptual over-
view of immersion. According to their definition,
immersion is a gradual, time-based, progressive
experience that includes the suppression of all
surroundings (spatial, audio-visual, and temporal
perception), together with attention and involve-
ment mediating the feeling of being in a virtual
world. This suggests immersion to be an experi-
ence related to cognitive processing and attention:
the more immersive an experience is, the more
attentionally demanding it is (see Reiter, 2011
for a discussion of attention and audio stimuli).
One could hypothesize that emotional state drives
attention (Öhman, Flykt, & Esteves, 2001) and
therefore, the more affective an experience is,
the more likely it is to grab individual attention
and consequently to immerse the player. Thus,
immersion would be elicited as the result of an
action chain that starts with affect. This prompts
an emotional response that influences attention
and, as a consequence, leads to immersion. It
remains to be shown whether, and how, affective
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