Application of Visitor Eye Movement Information to Museum Exhibit Analysis

Abstract

The motivation of this study is that after the COVID-19 epidemic, museum exhibition visits have also been significantly affected. The purpose of this research is to better understand the visual cognition of visitors, so as to improve the application of physical field or online exhibitions. Currently, no research is available on the differences in the visitor’s viewing and cognitive process with eye movements sequence analysis that stem from the exhibition planning and design of different museums. This study tracks and analyzes the eye movement trajectories of visitors and studies its relation to learning and cognition and finds the key to influencing cognition through behavioral sequence analysis of displayed content. The results show that those interested in the displayed content have better cognitive performance, are immersed in reading text, and have a substantial shift in eye movement. Contrarily, those not interested in the displayed content are distracted and often turn their attention back to the title of the content. In this study, eye movement and fixation are indicators that can be used as a reference for the future design of displays to improve the effectiveness of presenting information to a visitor. Furthermore, this research can also provide future applications in integrating the virtual world and cognitive information, in the application of AR, VR, or metaverse environment, to provide people’s cognition of rapid information in the virtual environment.