Beyond the lab: An examination of key factors influencing interaction with ‘real’ and museum-based art.

Abstract

The authors present a comprehensive review and theoretical discussion of factors that could influence our interaction with museum-based art. Art is an important stimulus that reveals core insights about human behavior and thought. Art perception is in fact often considered one of the few uniquely human phenomena whereby we process multiple types of information, experience myriad emotions, make evaluations, and where these elements not only occur but dynamically combine. Art viewing often occurs in museums, which—in conjunction with “real” artworks—may contribute greatly to experience. However, to date, psychological aesthetics studies have only begun to consider in-museum examinations, focusing instead on highly controlled laboratory-based studies, and leading to calls for a need to shift to ecologically valid examinations. To provide a foundation for such research, the authors consider what key psychological differences may be expected between original/reproduced and museum/lab-based art, and why the art experience may be different when occurring within the museum context. They also review factors that should be controlled for, or which may raise new, unexplored areas for empirical research. These include 3 main levels: the artwork, the viewer, and physical aspects of the museum. The authors connect these factors to a model of art processing and relate to findings from sociology and general museum studies, which have largely been overlooked in psychological aesthetics research.

Awe and Epistemology in a Science Museum

“…Researchers should consider studying awe in more ecologically valid, real world environments (Anderson, 2016). Like us, others have also shown differences in results from studies done in laboratories vs. museums (Makin, 2017;Pelowski, Forster, Tinio, Scholl & Leder, 2017;Silvia, 2017). Finally, much of the research on emotions in exhibits has shown a greater impact on delayed measures, and recent work on positive impacts of awe on issues such as social well-being and stress has lasted as long as one week after the awe inducing event (Anderson, 2016).…”

Viewing Art in Different Contexts

“…Of course, this is not an easy task, since a myriad of particular characteristics define different contexts and differences between them. In a comprehensive review of the characteristics of museum experience, Pelowski et al (2017) identify three broad groups: (1) features of the artwork; (2) characteristics of the viewer; and (3) characteristics of the presentation context. Features of artworks comprise both physical (size, texture, physical presence, and remnants of the artist's touch and effort) and perceived features (seeing objects as "art" and perceived authenticity).…”

“…It is well-established that context affects aesthetic experience and that investigations in authentic and ecologically-valid settings such as art museums are important in empirical aesthetics (for a review see Pelowski et al, 2017). Since the seminal work by Locher et al (1999Locher et al ( , 2001, studies in empirical aesthetics conducted in naturalistic settings have proliferated, afforded by new methods and techniques that have become available.…”

“…In summary, it is clear that digital availability of artworks has a substantial presence in the art field, making it important to continue investigating contextual factors in aesthetic experience and engagement with artworks in contexts ranging from museums and laboratories to tablets and cell phones. Pelowski et al (2017) comprehensive review of studies comparing the experience of museum-based art to that of digital reproductions in the laboratory noted a number of important contextual effects. For example, artworks are rated as more "immediate" and "pleasant" when viewed in museums (Locher et al, 1999) and, conversely, viewers perceive artworks displayed on computer screens as less interesting, less arousing, more ambiguous and less memorable than the same works exhibited in the gallery (Brieber et al, 2014(Brieber et al, , 2015.…”

Shared meaning in representational and abstract visual art: An empirical study.

“…Second, it may be that findings based on small images do not generalize to images in their original size. The issue is discussed extensively in Pelowski, Forster, Tinio, Scholl, and Leder (2017), who argue that lab studies are valuable, but that psychological processes in response to artwork are likely to differ in museum or gallery settings. Specker et al (2017) support this argument with data.…”