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Neurophysiological effects of museum modalities on emotional engagement with real artworks

Chen Feng, Sébastien Lugan, Karine Lasaracina, Midori Sugaya, Benoît Macq

TL;DR

This study tackles how digital interpretive content in museums modulates emotional engagement during art viewing. It employs an in-situ, wearable EEG approach to compare three modalities—original artwork, immersive wall-scale projection, and display-based interpretive video—within a real gallery setting. The findings show modality-specific engagement styles rather than uniform increases in engagement, with display-based formats driving higher arousal and fast-band activity, immersive projections fostering calm, presence-oriented absorption, and direct viewing eliciting internally regulated, reflective processing. The work demonstrates the feasibility of lightweight EEG sensing in operational cultural environments and offers guidance for optimizing interpretive media through multimodal sensing and content design.

Abstract

Museums increasingly rely on digital content to support visitors' understanding of artworks, yet little is known about how these formats shape the emotional engagement that underlies meaningful art experiences. This research presents an in-situ EEG study on how digital interpretive content modulate engagement during art viewing. Participants experienced three modalities: direct viewing of a Bruegel painting, a 180° immersive interpretive projection, and a regular, display-based interpretive video. Frontal EEG markers of motivational orientation, internal involvement, perceptual drive, and arousal were extracted using eyes-open baselines and Z-normalized contrasts. Results show modality-specific engagement profiles: display-based interpretive video induced high arousal and fast-band activity, immersive projections promoted calm, presence-oriented absorption, and original artworks reflected internally regulated engagement. These findings, relying on lightweight EEG sensing in an operational cultural environment, suggest that digital interpretive content affects engagement style rather than quantity. This paves the way for new multimodal sensing approaches and enables museums to optimize the modalities and content of their interpretive media.

Neurophysiological effects of museum modalities on emotional engagement with real artworks

TL;DR

This study tackles how digital interpretive content in museums modulates emotional engagement during art viewing. It employs an in-situ, wearable EEG approach to compare three modalities—original artwork, immersive wall-scale projection, and display-based interpretive video—within a real gallery setting. The findings show modality-specific engagement styles rather than uniform increases in engagement, with display-based formats driving higher arousal and fast-band activity, immersive projections fostering calm, presence-oriented absorption, and direct viewing eliciting internally regulated, reflective processing. The work demonstrates the feasibility of lightweight EEG sensing in operational cultural environments and offers guidance for optimizing interpretive media through multimodal sensing and content design.

Abstract

Museums increasingly rely on digital content to support visitors' understanding of artworks, yet little is known about how these formats shape the emotional engagement that underlies meaningful art experiences. This research presents an in-situ EEG study on how digital interpretive content modulate engagement during art viewing. Participants experienced three modalities: direct viewing of a Bruegel painting, a 180° immersive interpretive projection, and a regular, display-based interpretive video. Frontal EEG markers of motivational orientation, internal involvement, perceptual drive, and arousal were extracted using eyes-open baselines and Z-normalized contrasts. Results show modality-specific engagement profiles: display-based interpretive video induced high arousal and fast-band activity, immersive projections promoted calm, presence-oriented absorption, and original artworks reflected internally regulated engagement. These findings, relying on lightweight EEG sensing in an operational cultural environment, suggest that digital interpretive content affects engagement style rather than quantity. This paves the way for new multimodal sensing approaches and enables museums to optimize the modalities and content of their interpretive media.
Paper Structure (27 sections, 2 equations, 4 figures)

This paper contains 27 sections, 2 equations, 4 figures.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Interpretive Strategies in Art Viewing
  3. Museum Context
  4. Selection of the painting
  5. EEG Indexes of Emotional Engagement
  6. Frontal Alpha Asymmetry (FAA)
  7. Delta and Theta Activity
  8. Beta and Gamma Activity
  9. Methods
  10. Participants
  11. Context of this study
  12. Experimental Procedure and Condition Labeling
  13. Apparatus and Recording
  14. Signal Processing and Feature Extraction
  15. Preprocessing
  16. ...and 12 more sections

Figures (4)

  • Figure 1: Experimental setting in the museums. Left: acquisition of the baseline with two subjects, right: experiment session in front of a real artwork
  • Figure 2: Left: frontal alpha asymmetry (FAA) across the immersive projection and display-based interpretive video; no reliable modulation by presentation modality was observed, center: between-subject comparison of the arousal index for the immersive wall-scale projection and the display-based interpretive video, showing higher arousal during display-based viewing, right: relative frontal alpha fraction for the immersive projection and display-based interpretive video, indicating a larger alpha proportion in the display condition.
  • Figure 3: Left: within-subject comparison of Z-scored frontal theta power between original artwork (WoA) viewing and the display-based interpretive video, center: within-subject comparison of Z-scored frontal alpha power between original artwork (WoA) viewing and the display-based interpretive video, right: within-subject comparison of Z-scored frontal delta power between original artwork (WoA) viewing and the immersive wall-scale projection, showing selectively increased normalized delta in the immersive condition.
  • Figure 4: Left: within-subject comparison of baseline-corrected frontal alpha power between original artwork (WoA) viewing and the display-based interpretive video, Right: within-subject comparison of baseline-corrected frontal gamma power between original artwork (WoA) viewing and the display-based interpretive video.