Inclusive museum audio guides: ‘guided looking’ through audio description enhances memorability of artworks for sighted audiences

Abstract

Museums aim to offer engaging and memorable visitor experiences, but their visuo-centric bias can prove challenging for people both with and without sight. Audio Description was developed to convey visual information through verbal description to blind and partially sighted audiences. However, cognitive psychology suggests it could enhance memorability for sighted visitors by stimulating ‘guided-looking’. In this study, three groups of participants viewed nine photographs from the Museum of London’s collections, with either no audio, a standard audio guide or an audio descriptive guide. Enjoyment and emotional responses were similar for all groups. However, one month later, audio participants recalled more photos and were more likely to have re-engaged with the collection. Crucially, audio descriptive guide participants recalled most details about the photos. This suggests that inclusive audio descriptive guides could enhance access and memorability for sighted visitors, as well as expanding crucial access provisions for blind and partially sighted people.

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