Affordances and distributed cognition in museum exhibitions

Abstract

Exhibitions are the primary medium for the public communication of science in museums. Recently, there has been an interest in explaining the educational mechanisms of exhibitions in terms of meaning making, interaction and space; however these concepts have not yet been integrated into one consistent framework. Here, we invoke the notions of affordance and distributed cognition to explain in a coherent way how visitors interact with exhibits and exhibit spaces and make meaning from those interactions, and we exemplify our points using observations of twelve visitors to exhibits at a natural history museum. We show how differences in exhibit characteristics give rise to differences in the interpretive strategies used by visitors in their meaning-making process, and conclude by discussing how the notions of affordance and distributed cognition can be used in an exhibit design perspective.

Keywords:

• museum
• exhibit design
• affordance
• distributed cognition
• visitor experience
• diorama
• discovery room

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank Hanne Strager and the other employees at the Natural History Museum of Denmark who kindly accommodated us in the data collection for this manuscript. We kindly acknowledge the participation of 12 museum visitors.

Notes on contributors

Marianne Achiam (née Mortensen) is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Science Education, University of Copenhagen. She has an M.Sc. in Biology and a Ph.D. in Museum Didactics. Her research interests include science and particularly biology dissemination in informal contexts such as museums, science centres, zoos, aquaria and botanical gardens. She is the coordinator of the Departmental research group on science education in informal settings.

Michael May is an Associate Professor at the Department of Science Education, University of Copenhagen. He has a Ph.D. in Psychology and B.Sc. in Cultural Sociology. His research interests include science education, e-learning, philosophical and didactic aspects of modeling in science and semiotic aspects of formal and informal learning.

Martha Marandino is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of São Paulo/FEUSP, Brazil. She graduated in Biology and has an M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Education. Her research focuses on science museum education, science education and science communication. She is the coordinator of the Study and Research Group on Non Formal Education and Science Communication/GEENF/FEUSP (www.geenf.fe.usp.br).

Notes

1. The ‘snail invasion’ is a reference to the recent invasion in Northern Europe by the Spanish slug (Arion vulgaris), which is considered a serious horticultural pest.

2. The Deer Park (Dyrehaven) is a well-known forest park located north of Copenhagen, noted for its large populations of red deer (Cervus elaphus) and fallow deer (Dama dama). Both species are considerably larger than the roe deer.