Our brains love artwork captions: the University of Florence study

According to a study by theUniversity of Florence, our brains love captions of works of art. In other words, viewing works of art is more rewarding with the support of a descriptive caption. The confirmation comes from research by the team coordinated by the University of Florence, which tested this appreciation in terms of emotional and cognitive responses measured by recording physiological and behavioral parameters.

The study, published in the scientific journal Plos One, was conducted (in collaboration with the universities of Roma Tre and La Sapienza) in a museum of modern and contemporary art in Florence, the Roberto Casamonti Collection, housed in Palazzo Bartolini Salimbeni. Maria Michela Del Viva, of the Unifi Department of Neuroscience, Psychology, Drug Area and Child Health, led the research.

The project stems from an awareness of how, over the past few years, attention to the issue of the quality of the visitor experience has grown. Understanding audience behavior, needs and expectations, as well as relational dynamics and learning processes in nonformal settings, is a preliminary step in the design of any heritage enhancement and communication project.

Although evidence suggests that educational tools in museums can be crucial in enhancing the process of understanding, appreciating, and promoting individual well-being, their role, the paper published in Plos One states, has been questioned and some museums have chosen to reduce or even eliminate explanations and labels in an attempt to make the experience more emotional and less culture-driven. Scientifically assessing the impact of labels on the perception and understanding of artworks can therefore help strengthen museums’ efforts to develop the quality of the visitor experience and the effectiveness of their educational offerings. This is particularly relevant, according to the University of Florence researchers, for modern/contemporary art museums and visitors with little art education. Inexperienced people usually prefer figurative paintings over abstract ones because their content is most often ambiguous and undefined, compared to figurative art, where the objects represented are clearly recognizable. In fact, appreciation is related to understanding of artworks, and incomplete understanding can lead to visitor disappointment and potentially discourage further museum visits

The project involved choosing a few works, selecting a typology related to the consideration that non-expert observers find it more difficult to understand and appreciate modern art, after which the researchers recorded various biometric (eye movements, pupillary response, heartbeat, skin conductance) and behavioral (viewing time, questionnaires) parameters of visitors to the Florentine museum. Participants (thirty healthy volunteers between the ages of 21 and 30, all college students, not art majors, with cultural backgrounds typical of those who have studied art only in high school, with on average visits to exhibitions and museums only once or twice a year, and who have not recently read art magazines, books, or blogs) experienced the works with essential labels during a first visit and with descriptive labels during a second visit. To check that the effects could actually be attributed to descriptive labels and not to double exposure to paintings and essential labels, which could lead to familiarity effects, a control condition was introduced, in which essential labels were shown to an additional sample of participants during both sessions.

Results showed that when a descriptive caption is provided before viewing the paintings, participants spend more time observing the work and their eye movements are directed toward the described areas. Detailed description encourages participants to spend more time observing the artwork by following the information provided. It is difficult, after all, for laypeople to grasp the meaning of modern artworks: for example, a Miró painting may appear as a series of broad black brushstrokes with small colored spots. But when participants learn that the spots outline the shape of a female body, their eyes perform more fixations on the parts depicting the figure. This suggests that the explanation provides a key to cognitive and emotional understanding, confirmed by the subjective perception of increased positive feelings and understanding.

The results also show that participants who appreciate abstract art the most are those who spend the most time in front of paintings. However, aesthetic appreciation for the specific paintings presented during the experiment did not change with explanation. This suggests that although labels may facilitate understanding, this is not enough to cause greater appreciation. It can be hypothesized, according to the researchers who conducted the study, that specific art training is necessary to appreciate modern works of art. In fact, art knowledge facilitates so-called “aesthetic fluency,” a process that could lead people to better grasp the meaning of a work of art and to its aesthetic appreciation. Moreover, this result can be interpreted by the fact that modern/contemporary art does not have as its main goal to be “beautiful,” but rather to be interesting, activating, provocative, ambiguous and meaningful. Overall, the results show that visitors receive important benefits from reading detailed information about artworks.

“The encounter with the artwork can generate very different reactions depending on the prerequisites possessed by the visitor and his or her educational and emotional history,” says Maria Michela Del Viva, Unifi professor of psychobiology and physiological psychology. “What affects the quality of the museum experience, however, are above all the accompanying tools that the museum can develop to intensify the process of understanding and involvement of the public.”

“We observed,” the lecturer continues, “an increase in skin conductance and pupillary diameter: these are psychophysiological responses that suggest an increase in responsiveness and enjoyment induced by the enjoyment of the works. The increased viewer engagement was confirmed by questionnaires offered to participants: due to the descriptive captions, visitors reported finding the content of the works less complex and more stimulating. The results indicate that viewers benefit from detailed descriptions of the works, confirming the impact produced by the written word in the context of an aesthetic-cultural experience. A confirmation of how the use of effective information materials should be a primary goal of museums.”

Our brains love artwork captions: the University of Florence study

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