Abstract
Children learn about art by actively engaging with their surroundings. This makes museums potentially rich environments for learning and development. Yet, the descriptions of paintings on show are usually written for adults rather than younger visitors. This study uses mobile eye tracking to examine how painting descriptions tailored for children influence their eye movements when viewing paintings at the Rijksmuseum - the national museum of The Netherlands. Our findings underscore the importance of adapting information specifically for children, rather than simply providing them with adult-oriented museum materials. Children who received information tailored to their developmental level showed increased glance durations to areas highlighted in the descriptions. Strikingly, the behavior of children provided with painting descriptions intended for adults was no different from their behavior when they received no information at all.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 22880 |
| Pages (from-to) | 1-13 |
| Number of pages | 13 |
| Journal | Scientific Reports |
| Volume | 14 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| Early online date | 9 Oct 2024 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Dec 2024 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© The Author(s) 2024.