Museum soundscapes and their impact on visitor outcomes

Abstract

Consistent with Attention Restoration Theory, restorative experiences can help people recover from the effects of life stresses. Research suggests that noise can interfere with the restorative process or with factors necessary for restorative outcomes, and there is reason to believe that pleasant sounds such as classical music or nonthreatening sounds of nature can enhance restorative outcomes. Research demonstrates that a visit to a museum or park can result in a restorative experience. The impact of extraneous sounds in such settings might depend on the type of sound and the purpose of the setting. The settings for the current study were an art exhibit and a natural history exhibit at The Wildlife Experience, a museum in Parker, Colorado that focuses on various aspects of wildlife. The art exhibit (Some Like it Hot, Cold Wet, Dry), displayed paintings, sculpture, and taxidermy about wildlife in four climates, and was frequented by enthusiasts of diverse ages, especially adults. The natural history exhibit (CritterCam), contained many different interactive displays based on photos and information gained from cameras mounted on wild animals, focused on wildlife, and tended to attract families with young children. Each day as researchers observed visitors and conducted an exit interview with them (n = 430 art, 433 natural history), either no added sounds were piped into the exhibit (control condition), or a soundtrack of either human voices, instrumental classical music, or natural sounds (birdsong) was piped into the gallery space at a low (approximately 50dB(A)) or high (approximately 60dB(A)) volume level. In general, in the art exhibit natural sounds and classical music yielded the highest dwell times, engagement, satisfaction, and knowledge gain, and human voices, especially louder voices, yielded the worst outcomes. In the natural history exhibit the ambient noise (e.g., children's voices and other crowd noise) somewhat masked the added soundtracks, and there were fewer effects of the added soundtracks; visitors in the control condition (i.e., no added sound) experienced the best outcomes when compared to the other sound delivery conditions, in terms of longer dwell times and lower ratings of noisiness. In terms of dispositional measures, in the art exhibit, extraversion was positively correlated with self-reported knowledge gain, satisfaction, and restoration; and need for cognition was positively correlated with knowledge gain, satisfaction, and dwell time. In the natural history exhibit, extraversion was positively correlated with engagement and knowledge gain; and noise sensitivity was negatively correlated with satisfaction and knowledge gain. Results are consistent with a congruence interpretation: sounds congruent with visitor expectations of an exhibit are more likely to yield a restorative experience.

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