PLAY+ Flow Theory Part 1 | Tuning Engagement by Aiming for Flow

How PLAY+ marries Flow Theory to Process Philosophy to read and adjust the Classical Condition on the fly and improve performance

Foundations of Flow Theory

PLAY+ aligns with Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow Theory. This theory stipulates: when challenges are matched with skills in a desirable activity we can enter a Flow State and experience massive performance and productivity increases. Flow, Zen, Satori, the Zone; they’re all different expressions for the experience of Flow.

The Eight Characteristics of Flow

Flow Theory has 4 requirements and delivers 4 experiences. These are normally set up as simply the 8 Characteristics of Flow per theory, but PLAY+ breaks them into 2 groupings of 4:

Process of Flow - Physical

The 4 requirements are process based and align with the Physical Pole of the PLAY+ philosophy. All of these are happening anytime we’re engrossed in play. PLAY+ naturally fulfills the 4 requirements of Flow through Enriched Marking, Cue-Trigger Process, and through intentionally prioritizing these 4 characteristics of Flow–PLAY+ Aims to Flow.

There are 4 aspects of Flow Theory that are physical in nature and that require information and feedback from your partner and the environment. This process asks the handler to make good decisions, not plans and requires more Awareness than Attention.

Feelings of Flow - Mental

The Feelings of Flow are amazing and we need to do our best to ensure that they’re available to both dog and handler at all times in order to read and recognize when we’re not experiencing these affects and attend to that–shift gears, change focus, or dismiss the dog and try again in a few.

The 4 experiences are the Feelings of Flow or the affects of experiencing Flow. Perhaps you’ve felt them before. This is what it feels like to be “in the zone”.

All 8 of these are aspects of PLAY+, not because I tried to fit PLAY+ to Flow Theory, they just happened to be in there–a literal coincidence. Because if you’re really playing Flow is likely to happen. And PLAY+ is about really playing; an embodied experience not a behavioral exercise.

If you’ve ever done anything amazing with your dog, I know you’re chasing the heck out of this Flow experience. I speak from experience, I think we’re always chasing that perfect performance with our dogs from that point on. The bug that bites you and turns you into a crazy dog person is likely an Embodied Flow experience.

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Tune Flow & Tone with The Flow Map

Flow Theory identifies 8 affective states arranged in this orientation. This also doubles for a map of the dog’s Subjective Tone (more below). This is a pretty standard creative mapping of the 8 states of Flow per Flow Theory. The descriptions are nice.

PLAY+ places great emphasis on intentionally reading the environment and the dog in order to set the Challenge and choose the Skill or aspect of the skill to be performed. This is how you figure out where your team is at. Now, just Aim towards Flow.

The Flow Channel

The Flow Channel is a key aspect of Flow Theory and working/playing with dogs. This is where Challenge and Skill are equally balanced. Handlers should be aiming for that Flow Channel as a team, with the dog.

Pupillary Responses for Cognitive Load Measurement: Classifying Difficulty Levels in an Educational Video Game (Preprint) - “The Impact of Difficulty on Learning The flow experience model, proposed by Csikszentmihalyi [12], marks an achieved balance of arousal-increasing and arousal-decreasing processes. As shown in Figure 1, the flow model describes this balance in terms of the fit between perceived challenges and skills: an activity wherein challenges predominate increases arousal; an activity wherein skills predominate reduces arousal. Thus, a synchrony of challenges and skills permits a state of deep involvement, while the pitfalls of either over- or under-arousal (ie, anxiety or boredom) are avoided.”

If you increase the Skills requirement, Achieving the Challenge gets harder. If you increase the Challenge the Skills and decision making about them get harder. There is a sweet spot:

• too easy and the dog will get bored

• too hard and the dog will check out

• Be like Goldilocks and be just right

Keep Challenge and Skills coupled in a 1:1 relationship–on the edge so we can hit that flow channel and stay there.

Translating the Map to PLAY+

I recognized that dog trainers can tune the Subjective Tone (classical conditioned state) of a dog with this map. The physical-mental process of PLAY+ is equivalent to the Challenge & Skills of Flow Theory.

Physical Challenge

The Challenge is physical (classical)–boom-pow, do it! It is the performance of Actions and Skills. This is where we do multiple repetitions of our Actions or Skills with higher physical activity levels or perceptive constraints.

Physical challenges are more Awareness than Attention.

Mental Skills

The Skills are mental (operant)–hmmm… how are we gonna do it… It is the exploration of the Skill and decisions about Actions and Skills. This is where we overcome mental challenges and put constraints on how we perform the skill.

Mental Skills are more Attention than Awareness.

I use the terms from PLAY+ and Flow Theory interchangeably all the time; sometimes it’s Challenge vs Skill sometimes it’s physical-mental. Sometimes it’s Awareness and Attention–depends on what we’re doing.

The Subjective Tone

The Subjective Tone is the physiological and affective state of the agent. This is the Classically Conditioned State in behaviorism/R+ terms.

This tone is both steady and fluctuating at the same time, moment by moment even; you know, just like the classical condition. The Subjective Tone is set in the moment. When a cue is given, the tone is set. When you yell at the dog, it impacts the tone (if the dog cares). Poisoned Cue’s are a manifestation of the Subjective Tone through embodied experience, for instance. These changes in tone come from Attention.

In addition to this moment by moment fluctuation–SQUIRREL!… there is a steady state Subjective Tone of simply being in the environment. These changes of tone spring from Awareness.

So, how the dog feels, both in this very moment and in the environment in general is the Subjective Tone. All critters have a Subjective Tone, and yes, handlers and Teams are critters too.

The Flow Throttle: Tuning the Subjective Tone with Flow

Unique to PLAY+ is the purposeful real-time, long-term tuning emotional and physiological states; the Subjective Tone. We can change the classically conditioned state through how we work and what we focus on rather than having to change tasks, do a protocol, or otherwise perform in a scripted, inauthentic way.

Performing in a scripted manner, inauthentically, is a death sentence to PLAY. Our dogs know when we’re faking it and a game is contrived. This is a leading cause of engagement issues.

How to Tune the Tone of the Dog on the Fly in 3 Steps - Step 1: Read Dog’s Tone Step 2: Plop dog on one of the 8 states above Step 3: Aim to Flow by highlighting Physical Challenge or Mental Skill.

Step 1: Read the Dog

Reading the body language of the dog is a key skill for handlers. It’s like THE most important skill. The handler needs to be aware of the tone of the dog. You should be able to identify the 8 states of Flow above at any time. It’s not very hard, despite the fact that we’ve been told forever not to "anthropomorphize” the dog because they don’t have emotions or you might be wrong or it will complicate things. What horseshit, pardon the french.

Step 2: Plop the Dog on the Map

It’s not that hard to separate Apathy from Relaxation or Apathy from Worry once the handler’s Awareness includes the Subjective Tone. Placing the dog on this map is super easy, and you might not be correct. It’s ok. You’ll know once you start to play if it was the wrong diagnosis. Dismiss the dog, regroup and try again. This rep right now is not a high stakes game. So, plop the dog on that map.

Step 3: Aim to Flow

So you’ve plopped the dog on the map, now what are you gonna do? Well, you know where you want to go, right? Towards Flow, most likely; so set a heading towards the + sign on the map above and go there.

If your dog is Worried, explore the skill with a well matched challenge. That will move the dog to the right, towards Flow. As you enjoy success with a righteous challenge, the pace will pick up, dog and handler gain confidence and you’ll go up the map–Boom! you’re near the flow channel and your dog isn’t worried anymore.

If your dog is in a state of Boredom you want to bump up the Physical Challenge, so you’ll reduce the Skills focus and go and do something. Reps increase, criteria increases–Boom! your in the flow channel and your dog’s not bored any longer.

It can be useful to moving to another affect, sometimes we want Control, not Flow. So we can aim there instead. The most efficient paths are often not straight nor narrow. Anxiety, Worry, Apathy? Escape might require a detour.

Mental and Physical Flow Ratios: Steering Subjective Tone

Flow Ratios in Play+ are ratios of repetitions between two contrasting skills or behaviors. This is a dynamic tool for balancing strong and weak skills; leveraging easy vs hard for engagement and achievement; or discriminating easily conflated skills.

Specifically, the ratio reads Strong to Weak. It can be either 3:1 or 1:3, where the first number represents the repetitions of the stronger or desired skill, and the second number represents the repetitions of the weaker or undesired skill. This simple ratio mechanism is either Achieving the Physical (Challenge) or Exploring the Mental (Skills), effectively steering the dog's Tone towards the Flow Channel or keeping it there.

Physical Flow: The 3:1 Ratio ↖️

In a 3:1 ratio, the team performs three repetitions of the stronger or desired skill for every one repetition of the weaker or undesired skill.

This ratio is primarily geared towards repeated achievement of the Physical Challenge part of the skill. It aims to elevate the dog's arousal levels, pushing the Subjective Tone towards higher states like Arousal. The 3:1 ratio drives the dog up and left as physical challenge with lower mental engagement. This is Physical Flow.

Mental Flow: The 1:3 Ratio ↘️

Conversely, in a 1:3 ratio, the focus is on performing one repetition of the stronger or desired skill for every three repetitions of the weaker or undesired skill.

This ratio affords exploration of Skills and discovery of new and different ways of adapting actions to Skills. Discovery is the achievement of exploration. Mental Flow ratios aim to lower arousal levels, tugging the Subjective Tone towards states like Boredom and Relaxation. It invites a deeper dive into the details of the action, focusing on the intricacies of how the skill is performed. This is Mental Flow.

Practical Implications

3:1 for Physical-Challenge: Use this ratio to engage the dog, physically; challenging with a task, especially when the mental aspects of the skill are less critical.

1:3 for Mental Skill: Use this ratio when the focus is on the mental aspect of the task, especially when you want to dissect the behavior and explore different ways of performing it.

Go Do Dog Stuff

So go out, look at your dog and decide how the dog feels, and either increase the physical challenge or the mental skill so that the dog moves towards the Flow Channel. There you go, go do dog stuff…

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