Attention and Value : Keys to Understanding Museum Visitors

Bitgood, a leading visitor researcher, offers an important new model of visitor attention and shows how museum practitioners can apply it to create more effective museum environments that capture and sustain visitor attention.

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.