Inducing Flow with VR

This research explores how VR environments affect flow state. Using Unity, I prototyped a VR app in which the physics of the environment change depending on the user's emotional and mental state.

People are estimated to waste 2 hours a day at work from distractions. One of the best solutions to this problem is being able to achieve flow, a state of complete immersion. I sought to tackle how to better achieve flow through independent research under Dr. Leidy Klotz. I became interested in how virtual reality could induce flow in a quick and repeatable manner. After doing research in the behavioral insights needed to achieve flow primarily from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's "Flow", I began to design environments in VR that a user could completely and creatively control. Coding in C and using Unity, I began prototyping various models to achieve flow. I based success on achieving flow on two factors: heartbeats per minute, and qualitative feedback. One of the key aspects of the project was that the physics engine and settings are defined by your emotional state.