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Describing and Understanding the Experience of Visitors
Abstract
Can we gain access to the experience of museum visitors? Can we describe and understand their experiences? And especially, can we grasp the physical and cognitive processes through which knowledge is constructed in museums? This article focuses on the visitor experience from an enactive perspective, i.e., that which makes sense from the point of view of visitors during their visit. An analysis of the visitor’s “course-of-experience” carried out by means of a subjective re-situ interview allows us to describe and understand the basic units of the visitors’ experiences as well as the overall experience of the visit with precision, finesse, and depth. The actions and cognitive paths of visitors, which contribute to the construction of the knowledge, are also highlighted. This approach allows us to imagine new perspectives of mediation toward visitors and thus enrich the range of experiences offered by museums.
... In this way, Table 1 makes it possible to have a reasonable sense of the dynamics of visitors' actions and their (re)constructed knowledge and emotional enactive spaces. From this perspective, Table 1 allows the researcher to make sense of visitors' sense-making processes, notably in the way they declare connecting up different meaningful points during their visit (Schmitt 2016). ...
... From among the results-again, fully documented in [44]-we can highlight the fact that 80% of the users slightly/strongly agreed with the statement that "each painting in the recommended group was according to my visit objectives", whereas 69% of them slightly/strongly agreed with "I think I reached my visit objectives following the app recommendations", even if the recommendation logic intentionally left aside the most popular masterpieces. We sought deeper insight into reflection phenomena by following the Remind protocol [45], i.e., by making the users re-live the experience of using the app thanks to the recordings made by the glasses. In this regard, we observed that the results of the personalization algorithms supported the participants in a process of contemplation about their choices during the profiling process, and encouraged them to think about the art collections from a different viewpoint. ...
Recent advances in semantic web and deep learning technologies enable new means for the computational analysis of vast amounts of information from the field of digital humanities. We discuss how some of the techniques can be used to identify historical and cultural symmetries between different characters, locations, events or venues, and how these can be harnessed to develop new strategies to promote intercultural and cross-border aspects that support the teaching and learning of history and heritage. The strategies have been put to the test in the context of the European project CrossCult, revealing enormous potential to encourage curiosity to discover new information and increase retention of learned information.
Ten years of studying museum visitors’ sense-making processes have led to developing two in situ research methods. First, from a conceptual ‘enactive’ perspective, our REMIND method seeks to understand more clearly visitors’ sense-making processes. This involves employing an eye-tracker video recording of visitors’ gaze points as the basis of semi-guided interviews conducted on the site of the museum immediately after the visit. Second, our E-MOTION method traces visitors’ paths in the museum linked to their declared level of emotions. In doing this, the method creates an emotion-map of a visitor’s journey in the museum. The two methods identify museum features conducive to sense-making, which can be linked to Gardner’s (1993 Gardner, H. 1993. Frames of Mind. New York: Basic Books. [Google Scholar]) multiple intelligences, and to disengaging ‘sense-wrecking’.
Museos de ciencias intentan cambiar su oferta museologica proponiendo exposiciones espectaculares, que favorecen emociones fuertes y experiencias memorables. Asi se utilizan cada vez mas tecnologias de inmersion para hacer que los visitantes « vivan directamente » lo que es tratado por la exposicion. Pero lo que puede suscitar concretamente el senti- miento de la inmersion, y las razones por las cuales los visitantes se pueden sentir sumergidos en una experiencia fuerte, quedan dificiles de analizar. Algunos ejemplos de museografias pueden illustrar la diversidad de la tecnicas utilizadas para favorecer la inmersion. Sin embargo, son investigaciones acerca de la recepcion que nos permitieron modelizar esta nueva forma de mediacion. Nuestra metodologia basada en entrevistas profundizadas, permitio proponer configuraciones de visita, que muestran una tension entre un efecto de inmersion y un efecto de distanciamiento. Un analisis de la extension de este tipo de museografia en museos de ciencias muestra un cambio de paradigma : pasamos de la « cultura cientifica » al « entretenimiento cientifico ».
El desarollo del entretenimiento en los museos les relaciona con lugares de diversion. Pienso que debemos analizar esto dentro de una persectiva ancha. Lo pensamos aqui en relación con une reflexión acerca del concepto de « experiencia », y con las tendencias de la economia contemporànea. La palabra « experiencia » se encuentra cada vez mas en la reflexión museológica como en la publicidad de los museos.
En primera parte, exploraremos este concepto de « experiencia », analizando como se utiliza en las exposiciones, los parques, los sitios históricos : dos sitios de pleno aire nos servirân de ejemplos, Colonial Williamsburg y Plimoth Plantation. En la secunda parte, pondremos en relación las observaciones hechas en museos y las anàlisis propuestas por los economistas americanos. Tenemos una hipótesis : una parte importante del desarollo reciente y del exito de los museos es relacionado con su inclusion en la categoria de los lugares de experiencia, y en las dinàmicas de « entertainment economy » y « expérience economy ». Entretenimiento, estetismo, evasión, educación, se combinan para ofrecer ricas experiencias que cada uno puede vivir y incluir en su desarollo personal.
Using Peirce's three categories of experience (1931-1935), the authors categorized a group of teachers' emotions into different affective states. During ordinary teaching situations contradictory emotions were observed. The nature of the emotions was related to the teachers' level of dependence on the lesson plan and the need to maintain student activity and underlined the importance of emotions in learning to teach.
Pouvons-nous accéder à l’expérience des visiteurs dans un musée ? Pouvons-nous décrire et comprendre ces expériences ? En particulier, pouvons-nous saisir les enchaînements corporels et cognitifs à travers lesquels nous construisons des connaissances dans les musées de sciences et centres de culture scientifique ?
Cette étude aborde l’expérience des visiteurs à partir d’une perspective énactive comme ce qui fait sens du point de vue du visiteur dans le cours de sa visite. Les principaux résultats portent sur une méthode d’investigation originale dans le champ muséal qui autorise un nouveau point de vue sur l’expérience des visiteurs dans les musées. Nous montrons que l’analyse du cours d’expérience réalisée à partir d’un entretien en re-situ subjectif permet de décrire et de comprendre les unités élémentaires de l’expérience des visiteurs, ainsi que l’expérience globale de visite avec précision, finesse et profondeur. Nous mettons en évidence les actions et les cheminements cognitifs des visiteurs qui concourent à la construction de leurs connaissances.
Nous proposons également des cours d’expérience typiques aux visites de musées qui participent de façon récurrente à la construction de connaissances et qui ouvrent des nouvelles perspectives. Plutôt que transmettre des savoirs, un musée de science ou un centre de culture scientifique paraît surtout encourager et stimuler la créativité des visiteurs pour qu’ils puissent se lier à des expôts et à des œuvres d’une façon qui leur convient. Dans des conditions favorables, ces musées contribuent alors à enrichir le monde propre de chaque visiteur de nouvelles possibilités de connaître.
Cet article issu d'un travail collectif discute les modalités d'appréhension des connaissances pratiques. Il montre la nécessité de développer des méthodologies particulières d'entretien pour développer une anthropologie cognitive des pratiques corporelles. A partir de trois études de cas, nous démontrons quelles techniques d'entretien permettent d'analyser les processus cognitifs à l'œuvre dans des situations aussi variées que l'arbitrage en rugby (Rix-Lièvre), l'activité culinaire de chefs domestiques experts (Olivier Wathelet) et la transmission de l'expérience corporelle en danse contemporaine à des élèves amateurs (Anne Cazemajou). Deux types de techniques sont particulièrement discutés: des entretiens utilisant des supports vidéo s'inspirant de l'entretien d'auto-confrontation et l'entretien d'explicitation.
A new edition of a classic work that originated the “embodied cognition” movement and was one of the first to link science and Buddhist practices.
This classic book, first published in 1991, was one of the first to propose the “embodied cognition” approach in cognitive science. It pioneered the connections between phenomenology and science and between Buddhist practices and science—claims that have since become highly influential. Through this cross-fertilization of disparate fields of study, The Embodied Mind introduced a new form of cognitive science called “enaction,” in which both the environment and first person experience are aspects of embodiment. However, enactive embodiment is not the grasping of an independent, outside world by a brain, a mind, or a self; rather it is the bringing forth of an interdependent world in and through embodied action. Although enacted cognition lacks an absolute foundation, the book shows how that does not lead to either experiential or philosophical nihilism. Above all, the book's arguments were powered by the conviction that the sciences of mind must encompass lived human experience and the possibilities for transformation inherent in human experience.
This revised edition includes substantive introductions by Evan Thompson and Eleanor Rosch that clarify central arguments of the work and discuss and evaluate subsequent research that has expanded on the themes of the book, including the renewed theoretical and practical interest in Buddhism and mindfulness. A preface by Jon Kabat-Zinn, the originator of the mindfulness-based stress reduction program, contextualizes the book and describes its influence on his life and work.
Les muséologues croient que l'on peut accroître le caractère éducatif des expositions offertes au public adulte dans la mesure où l'on connaît et comprend l'expérience du visiteur. Cette expérience est accessible à travers le fonctionnement psychologique de la personne en train de regarder une exposition. À son tour, le fonctionnement trouve un témoin valide dans le discours produit par le visiteur en réponse à une sollicitation de penser tout haut ("Thinking Aloud"). Cette technique, utilisée en recherche dans le but de mettre au jour les processus cognitifs de l'apprenant, peut avec profit être adaptée au contexte muséal. /// There is a consensus among researchers in museology that to enhance the educational value of exhibitions, it is necessary to access and understand the actual experience of the individual visiting an exhibition. This experience is accessible through the psychological functioning of the person who is looking at objects. The discourse produced in this context following instructions for "Thinking Aloud," a technique used in research in order to tap the cognitive processes of the learner, has been found to be a valid source of information about this functioning.
Notwithstanding their diversity, all living systems must share a common organization which we implicitly recognize calling them “living.” At present there is no formulation of this organization, mainly because the great developments of molecular, genetic and evolutionary notions in contemporary biology have led to the overemphasis of isolated components, e.g., to consider reproduction as a necessary feature of the living organization and, hence, not to ask about the organization which makes a living system a whole, autonomous unity that is alive regardless of whether it reproduces or not. As a result, processes that are history dependent (evolution, ontogenesis) and history independent (individual organization) have been confused in the attempt to provide a single mechanistic explanation for phenomena which, although related, are fundamentally distinct.
- Jack Guichard
- Jean-Louis Martinand
Guichard, Jack and Martinand, Jean-Louis, Médiatique des Sciences. Paris: PUF,
2000.
The Museum Experience. Washington, Whalesback Books
- John Falk
- Lynn Dierking
Falk, John, and Lynn Dierking. The Museum Experience. Washington, Whalesback Books, 1992.
- Jack Guichard
- Jean-Louis Martinand
Guichard, Jack and Jean-Louis Martinand. Médiatique des Sciences. Paris, PUF, 2000.