We are going to be talking about “flow,” I think, in characterizing our sequence learning work.  So, some points of contact for reference:

Ericsson & Ward (2007) in their report about capturing expert performance in the lab, include this quote towards the end:

“It is clear that skilled individuals can sometimes experience highly enjoyable states (‘‘flow’’, as described by Mihaly Csıkszentmihalyi, 1990) during their performance.”

The man with the unpronounceable name is often cited about the concept of “flow.”  His wikipedia page is an interesting read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mihaly_Csikszentmihalyi

It cites his “seminal work” as:  Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly (1990). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: Harper and Row. ISBN 0-06-092043-2

We have observed some increased activity in ventral striatum areas (near the nucleus accumbens) during periods of performance with higher levels of accuracy.  This could reflect reward-related activity possibly associated with something like “flow” (n.b., we’re speculating here).   We have also observed a “hot hand” effect in behavioral performance — getting a response correct is likely to be followed by additional correct responses, possible creating sequences of high-performance “flow.”

The idea of flow pops up in video game playing in general and is likely related.  A video game author, Jenova Chen, has been explicitly trying to capture “flow” in various games.  She has published a popular and fairly simple flash game called “flOw,” but another game by her company called “Flower” caught my attention:

http://thatgamecompany.com/games/flower/
Youtube trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcU8Yw43BuU
Youtube gameplay video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUC2tpY5gb4

The gameplay video is what I found first of hers and made me wonder if between the first person perspective and sense of flow, whether experience with this game would enhance visuo-spatial abilities like some other video games do.

I should also note that the Ericsson & Ward (2007) quote is being taken slightly out of context.  They actually follow it by saying that flow is not part of skill learning:

“These states are, however, incompatible with deliberate practice, in which individuals engage in a (typically planned) training activity aimed at reaching a level just beyond the currently attainable level of performance by engaging in full concentration, analysis after feedback, and repetitions with refinement.”

I’d disagree with this statement about flow and skill acquisition being incompatible (flow seems to imply dopamine, which ought to be good for dopamine-gated plasticity in cortico-striatal circuits, one would think).  But I don’t disagree with the idea that top-down (deliberate) control may be helpful in many skill learning contexts.  Before you can learn a skill (or habit) you have to be able to step through the proper sequence and it’s probably faster to do this deliberately than laboriously chain a long sequence of trail-an-error learning through some crazy TD algorithm.