Attention and Value: Keys to Understanding Museum Visitors

How can museums capture visitors’ attention? And how can their attention be sustained? In this important volume, leading visitor researcher and educational psychologist Stephen Bitgood proposes a model—the attention-value model—that will help museum practitioners create more effective museum environments. A major advance beyond earlier efforts, the attention-value model shows how both personal and exhibit design variables influence the capture, focus, and engagement of attention. Bitgood also offers extensive background in the visitor attention literature, details of his extensive testing of the attention-value tool, and guidelines for its application. Balancing theory, research, and practical application, Attention and Value is a must-read for exhibition developers at all levels—from students to seasoned practitioners.

Table of Contents:
Part 1 What We Know about Visitor Attention; Chapter 1 Introduction; Chapter 2 Early Studies In Visitor Attention; Chapter 3 Review of Visitor Attention Theories and Models; Chapter 4 Inferred Outcomes of Engaged Attention; Chapter 5 Overview of The Attention-Value Model; Part 2 Understanding Value and Motivation; Chapter 6 Value as a Combination of Quality and Duration: Impact on Choice of Film; Chapter 7 How Value Influences Choice of Text Passages; Chapter 8 Predicting Engaged Attention to Exhibit Text Passages; Part 3 Ways to Promote Engaged Attention; Chapter 9 Prompting Engaged Attention with Visitor Self-Guides; Chapter 10 Prompting Engaged Attention by Instructions to Describe or Compare Exhibit Objects; Chapter 11 How Label Placement Influences Visitor Attention; Chapter 12 Prompting Attention to Exhibits by Supplementing Audio with Text; Chapter 13 Prompting Attention with a Large Interpretive Background; Part 4 Promoting Engaged Attention Though Exhibit Design; Chapter 14 Phenomena Associated with Decreases in Visitor Attention; Chapter 15 Visitor Navigation and Attention; Chapter 16 Visitor Attention in Exhibitions: Some Guiding Principles;

About the Author :
Stephen Bitgood, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Psychology at Jacksonville State University in Alabama, USA. After several years of work in experimental, clinical, and educational psychology, he began studying visitors in museums, parks, and zoos in 1984. He has travelled extensively conducting research with visitors, evaluating exhibitions, conducting workshops for professionals, and presenting conference papers. His work has focused on applying a scientific, psychological approach to the study of visitors and his wide-ranging publications in visitor studies include Social Design in Museums: The Psychology of Visitor Studies (MuseumsEtc, 2011), a chapter in the Handbook of Environmental Psychology (Bechtel & Churchman, 2002), articles in Visitor Studies, Visitor Studies Today, Curator, Journal of Interpretation Research, and Journal of Museum Education, among many others.