Enhance Experience

Most of us look at art while hearing something, so Ozger and Choudhury’s study is generally useful.  The research duo report that college students’ moods “were measured via The Implicit Positive and Negative Affect Test (IPANAT) after a presentation of Francisco Goya's Black Paintings. There were three randomly assigned groups with a narration about the artist's life and the significance of his paintings (group N), classical music (group M) and both (group NM). Participant's art knowledge was also assessed, as determined by the Vienna Art Interest and Art Knowledge Questionnaire (VAIAK).

Van de Perre, Smet, Hanselaer, Dujardin, and Ryckaert evaluated the consequences of different lightscapes in windowless offices. They report that “A two-interval-forced-choice experiment was conducted with the 20 lighting scenes derived from five CCTs [correlated color temperatures] (2500–10 000 K) and four luminances (12–120 cd/m²). The results from 20 observers showed that a higher wall luminance significantly increased brightness.

Wang and Leung studied the indoor visual environments (IVE) in residential care homes (RDCHs).  They learned that “The IVE, including opening design, interior design, and lighting conditions components, should be designed to satisfy older people's special visual needs. Hence, this study aims to investigate the effects of older people's subjective perceptions of the IVE on their visual-related physical health. In total, 197 questionnaires were collected from older persons living in RCHs. . . .

Brinkman and colleagues enrich our understanding of how culture influences the experience of looking at art.  They found that people from Austria and from Japan moved their eyes differently when looking at European and Japanese art and photographs.

How does how we’re moving or where we're standing while looking at art influence our responses to that art?  Kuhnapfel and colleagues share that “in a gallery-like setting . . . we tracked movements of participants that engaged an abstract artwork. . . . moving more/more dynamically related to more reported insight. . . . We found indications that when people spent more time near to the artwork, or when their mean viewing distance was closer, they rated the art as more meaningful, interesting, and reported feeling more stimulated and insight.