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The present experimental study explored the link between flow and both objective and subjective measures of mental effort. Subjective measures of flow and mental effort, and objective measures of mental effort (pupil diameter and heart rate variability), were collected during a puzzle video game played at one of three levels of difficulty: too easy, optimal and too difficult. Participants in the optimal condition reported more flow than those in both the too-easy condition (which generated less mental effort and less subjective mental effort) and too-difficult condition (which generated an equal amount of mental effort and more subjective mental effort). Flow is a state that may require mental effort, even if it feels effortless for video game players.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1093\/iwc\/iwae026","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2024,7,1]],"date-time":"2024-07-01T18:20:32Z","timestamp":1719858032000},"page":"371-382","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":2,"title":["Flow State Requires Effortful Attentional Control but Is Experienced Effortlessly by Video Game Players"],"prefix":"10.1093","volume":"36","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0001-8501-4529","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Morgane","family":"Pujol","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Cognition , Languages, Language & Ergonomics Laboratory (CLLE), , 5 all\u00e9es Antonio Machado, 31058 Toulouse Cedex 9 ,","place":["France"]},{"name":"CNRS & University of Toulouse Jean Jaur\u00e8s , Languages, Language & Ergonomics Laboratory (CLLE), , 5 all\u00e9es Antonio Machado, 31058 Toulouse Cedex 9 ,","place":["France"]}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-3794-9653","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Lo\u00efc","family":"Caroux","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Cognition , Languages, Language & Ergonomics Laboratory (CLLE), , 5 all\u00e9es Antonio Machado, 31058 Toulouse Cedex 9 ,","place":["France"]},{"name":"CNRS & University of Toulouse Jean Jaur\u00e8s , Languages, Language & Ergonomics Laboratory (CLLE), , 5 all\u00e9es Antonio Machado, 31058 Toulouse Cedex 9 ,","place":["France"]}]},{"given":"C\u00e9line","family":"Lemercier","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Cognition , Languages, Language & Ergonomics Laboratory (CLLE), , 5 all\u00e9es Antonio Machado, 31058 Toulouse Cedex 9 ,","place":["France"]},{"name":"CNRS & University of Toulouse Jean Jaur\u00e8s , Languages, Language & Ergonomics Laboratory (CLLE), , 5 all\u00e9es Antonio Machado, 31058 Toulouse Cedex 9 ,","place":["France"]}]}],"member":"286","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2024,7,1]]},"reference":[{"key":"2024101411141185100_ref1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"159","DOI":"10.14361\/9783839447130-008","volume-title":"Time and space in video games: a cognitive-formalist approach","author":"Alvarez Igarz\u00e1bal","year":"2019"},{"key":"2024101411141185100_ref2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"101","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-031-05637-6_7","volume-title":"HCI in games","author":"Ambati","year":"2022"},{"key":"2024101411141185100_ref3","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.1145\/3411764.3445678","article-title":"Flow encourages task focus, but frustration drives task switching: how reward and effort combine to influence player engagement in a simple video game","author":"Bowman","year":"2021","journal-title":"Proc. 2021 CHI conf. human factors comput. syst."},{"key":"2024101411141185100_ref4","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"366","DOI":"10.1016\/j.chb.2015.01.066","article-title":"Player\u2013video game interaction: a systematic review of current concepts","volume":"48","author":"Caroux","year":"2015","journal-title":"Comput. 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