What is it about?
This study explored how design choices in museum spaces - wall colors, furniture arrangement, the shape of objects, and lighting - influence visitors' emotions and aesthetic experience. To do this in a controlled way, we created eight virtual reality environments, each varying one design feature (e.g., warm vs. cool colors, curved vs. angular forms), and asked 47 participants to explore and rate them.
Featured Image
Photo by Flipboard on Unsplash
Why is it important?
Museums invest enormous resources in spatial design, often relying on the intuition of architects and designers. This study provides empirical, controlled evidence on which visual elements actually make a difference in visitor experience, and which ones do not. Virtual reality allowed us to isolate each variable individually, something impossible to achieve in a real museum setting.
Perspectives
Every time I walk into a museum, I notice how the space itself shapes the way I feel , before I even look at a single artwork. This study was born from that intuition, and from the desire to give it a scientific foundation. Working with virtual reality allowed us to ask questions that would otherwise be impossible to answer rigorously: What if we could hold everything constant except the color of the walls? What if we could compare the same room with curved versus angular furniture, and actually measure how people feel? The results genuinely surprised me in places. Science does that: it humbles you.
Marta Pizzolante
Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: What moves the museum? Evidence on indoor spatial and design principles shaping affective and aesthetic responses., Psychology of Aesthetics Creativity and the Arts, May 2026, American Psychological Association (APA),
DOI: 10.1037/aca0000878.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
