Perception of Light in Museum Environments: Comparison between Real-Life and Virtual Visual Experiences

Abstract

Alternative environments to real-life have been in recent demand in regard to lighting design and in museums. In this study, the effectiveness of the perception of the museum space in simulations or virtual-based environments is studied. Answers to a questionnaire regarding lighting in four different visual experiences are compared: Real-life, virtual-video-based, virtual-photo-based and virtual-render-based. A total of 117 participants were divided into four visual experience groups. Each group answered the same lighting related questions for four exhibition halls in the Natural History Museum of the University of Pisa (Italy), which is housed in the Monumental Charterhouse of Calci. The answers were analyzed using ANOVA and a T-test. The results show that virtual experiences can be acceptable alternatives to real-life experience as the answers were indifferent in more than half of the criteria, and no criterion was affected significantly by experience, regardless of the hall’s characteristics. However, it was found that the hall’s characteristics also had an impact on the perception of the criteria in different experiences. Controlled artificial lighting or uniformly distributed lighting (full day or artificial light) were found to be more indifferent to the experience.

Dataset of virtual and real-life visual experiences inside a museum: survey on visual perception with objective and subjective measures

“…The data shown in this article are related to the research paper entitled “Perception of light in museum environments: comparison between physical and virtual visual experiences” [1] . In the paper, four exhibition halls of the Natural History Museum of the University of Pisa are analysed.…”

“… Occupants’ perception of a space depends on their experience [1] , [2] , [3] . Four kinds of visiting experiences were carried out inside the Natural History Museum of the University of Pisa [4] .…”

“…To evaluate participants’ perception of the space questionnaires were used. The presented data refer to the article: “Perception of light in museum environments: comparison between real-life and virtual visual experiences” [1] . This kind of data provides a base to assess if virtual kinds of experience can be implemented in museum environments as an alternative to the real-life experience, and to understand if such an implementation is detrimental or not in terms of participants’ perception of the space.…”