The grammar of the gallery: room corners influence the mental representation of picture arrangements

Especially informal learning settings, such as exhibitions, (virtual) museums or historical places, arrange interesting visual content not only in front of but also all around the visitor. Visitors move through these three-dimensional places and determine in which order and how long they pay attention to the different pieces of information. In this article we ask whether and how architectural characteristics influence the cognitive processing of visitors when they deal with the presented content. In the first part of the article, several experiments describe the detrimental effect of corners on memory for related pieces of information; pairs of information were memorized better if they were presented within one wall instead of on two adjacent walls with a corner between them. Further, the findings of previous studies are summarized, suggesting that this corner effect could be overcome by restricting learners in where they could orient their central field of view or by grouping the informational units across corners using spatial gaps on the walls. In the second part of the article, a study is presented in more detail which tested whether the corner effect could also be overcome by thoughtful lighting of the rooms. Pairs of pictures were arranged on the walls of a virtual room, and learners had to memorize where the two pictures forming a pair were placed. Lighting was varied, and it was expected that in evenly lit rooms the pairs of pictures would be remembered better if arranged within one wall instead of across two adjacent walls, whereas in rooms with brighter light in the corners this effect should be weaker. The findings replicated the corner effect on memory, but showed no influence of lighting.