Ries and Schwan studied the implications of spending time in historic places, such as locations on the UNESCO world heritage list. They learned that “the impact of a given location on psychological processes not only depends on its current attributes, but also on the visitor's awareness of its historical dimension. . . . sites of historical significance do not speak for themselves but require implementation of additional didactic elements for triggering mindfulness and historical reasoning. In particular, besides reconstruction to foster historical readability and provision of guided tours, on site uses of digital tools like multimedia apps or augmented reality have been found to foster deeper historical understanding.”
Melissa Ries and Stephan Schwan. “Experiencing Places of Historical Significance: A Psychological Framework and Empirical Overview.” Journal of Environmental Psychology, in press, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2023.102179