In the white cube: Museum context enhances the valuation and memory of art

• We examine the effect of context (museum/laboratory) on art experience and memory.
• Art experience is enhanced in the museum.
• Art in the museum is found more interesting, positive, arousing, and liked more.
• Memory for art is better in the museum than in the laboratory.
• Improved recall in the museum is predicted by the use of contextual cues.

Art museum attendance is rising steadily, unchallenged by online alternatives. However, the psychological value of the real museum experience remains unclear because the experience of art in the museum and other contexts has not been compared. Here we examined the appreciation and memory of an art exhibition when viewed in a museum or as a computer simulated version in the laboratory. In line with the postulates of situated cognition, we show that the experience of art relies on organizing resources present in the environment. Specifically, artworks were found more arousing, positive, interesting and liked more in the museum than in the laboratory. Moreover, participants who saw the exhibition in the museum later recalled more artworks and used spatial layout cues for retrieval. Thus, encountering real art in the museum enhances cognitive and affective processes involved in the appreciation of art and enriches information encoded in long-term memory.