An Evaluation of the Effects of a Virtual Museum on Users’ Attitudes towards Cultural Heritage

Abstract

(1) Background: Several opportunities have appeared for the dissemination of culture and heritage thanks in part to the widespread use of information and communications technologies. Virtual museums have appeared as innovative technological products but often lack an evaluation of the impact that they have and their success in achieving their purpose. In this sense, this work seeks to evaluate the impact of a virtual museum on users’ attitudes toward cultural heritage. (2) Methods: We used a factorial design of 2 (direction of thoughts: positive vs. negative) × 2 (presence level: high vs. low) × 2 (virtual museum vs. interactive website). (3) Results: Attitudes toward heritage can change as a function of a multimedia experience, thought favorability, and presence. In a virtual museum, when general attitudes are evaluated, a sense of high psychological presence reduces the effect that thoughts (especially when negative) have on attitudes. However, in the case of visiting an interactive website, the effect of the direction of thoughts on attitudes occurred regardless of conditions of high or low presence. Similar tendencies are observed for specific attitudinal objects. (4) Conclusion: A virtual museum can have different effects depending on the interaction of important variables from the virtual reality literature and not only the classic main effects. Recommendations for interventions and future practical and theoretical work are presented.

Yogyakarta Vredeburg Fort Museum Based to Conduct the Designation of Learning Video of Social Science

“…The public also agrees that museums innovate in providing convenience services to the community [32]. These innovation includes 13 kinds of ways including ( 1) online reservation [33], (2) social media Instagram [34], (3) an information system called SIMVONI [35]; ( 4) Virtual Art Museum [36]; (5) digital technology [37]; (6) digital learning videos [38]; (7) Mobile learning [39]; (8) augmented reality [40]; (9) Android platform technology [41]; (10) Museum visualization [18]; (11) web museum [42,1] (12) YouTube [1,42]; (13) Virtual tour [43,44,45,32,46,34,47,48,33,49,50,7,45]. Virtual tours are indeed the most widely used in developing museums in Indonesia and in the world.…”

Think About It: Promoting Physical Activity With a Mobile App With a Theory-Based Approach

“…Attitudes are understood from social psychology as global and relatively stable evaluations that people have about other people, ideas, things, issues and proposals, which are conventionally called the attitudinal object [26], [27]. In other words, the concept of an attitude refers to the positive or negative degree to which people tend to judge any aspect of reality, which may be a very specific issue (e.g., drinking soda) or very abstract (e.g., cultural heritage [28]).…”

The Mediation Effect of Attitudes for the Association between Thoughts and the Use of Condoms in a Mobile-App Environment: From Thought to Intention

“…Second, regarding theory-based interventions, results might be different depending on the type of display used to promote changes. Smartphones or head-mounted displays (HMD) can be very similar in the procedure used to generate thoughts but include variations in different dimensions of virtuality such as presence or immersion, leading to different consequences [ 65 , 66 ]. Likewise, psychological processes in which thoughts are more likely to be used by the users [ 67 ] may also be possible to incorporate by changing technical elements, thereby improving potential health indicators.…”