Wellbeing Assessment of a Museum Experience in Virtual Reality through UCL Measurement Tool Kit and Heart Rate Measurement: a Pilot Study

Abstract

A visit experience in art museums or galleries can bring significant benefits to people’s health, since it can act on the sense of identity, with a consequent impact on positive emotions and self-esteem. Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) can represent a useful means of accessibility and daily good practice, for instance for therapeutic purposes: in this scenario, Virtual Reality (VR) plays a crucial role, thanks to the sense of presence and the possibility of interactive and collaborative environments. In this pilot study, an experiment was conducted to measure and discuss the effects of a virtual visit to an archaeological museum, in terms of improvement of wellbeing. The experiment was conducted on two groups of participants: a first group experiencing the visit and the artifacts fruition in Virtual Reality (VR) and a second group performing a visit only on a screen. The Positive and Negative Wellbeing Umbrella, which is part of the UCL Museum Wellbeing measurement Tool Kit, and the measurement of Heart rate pre and post-session were used for the assessment. For the next step, these data will be compared with the data taken from a real visit to the archaeological Museum. The final goal of the whole study is the optimization and improvement of a VR application for remote fruition of an archaeological museum, acting on stress reduction of hospitalized patients.