Towards Cognitive Museology: Empirical Insights into Aesthetic Pleasure, Engagement, and Well-being in Art Appreciation

Hideaki Kawabata, Keio University

For a long time, researchers in empirical aesthetics and neuroaesthetics have faced a dilemma between the rigorous internal validity of laboratory settings and the ecological validity of real-world museum contexts. They have aimed to bridge this gap by integrating cognitive science, psychology, and museum studies to understand the holistic visitor experience. This presentation proposes an integrated study of art appreciation—spanning from physical and cognitive engagement to emotional transformation and psychological well-being. Drawing on our recent laboratory and simulated-gallery studies, we demonstrate how physical behaviors are systematically influenced by artwork properties and internal states. For instance, viewing distance is strongly determined by canvas height, while a forward-leaning posture correlates with the viewer’s subjective interest and aesthetic pleasantness. Furthermore, eye-tracking experiments reveal that gaze behavior toward social cues (i.e., faces in figurative paintings) changes over time and is modulated by individual differences, such as autistic traits, highlighting the diversity in socio-cognitive processing of art. We also show that human subjective judgments of art memorability significantly outperform computational models (e.g., ResMem), emphasizing the unique semantic and metacognitive nature of human aesthetic memory. Additionally, we discuss our recent virtual reality studies exploring art appreciation and public art installations. Furthermore, building on these empirical foundations, we introduce our recent field research conducted in and beyond actual art museums. By analyzing free descriptions and changes in positive and negative moods before and after appreciation, we explore how the physical and cognitive engagements identified throughout the lab studies translate into deeper psychological well-being in ecologically valid settings. This talk argues that combining multimodal lab-based measurements with field-based subjective narratives provides a comprehensive understanding of the aesthetic episode, offering evidence-based insights for future curatorial practices and the design of well-being-enhancing museum environments.