Weight lifting for museum visitors: What is its effect?

This study adds to our knowledge of the effect of weight lifting on people who visit museums:

“Weight lifting can facilitate appreciative comprehension for museum exhibits,” Yuki Yamada, Shinya Harada, Wonje Choi, Rika Fujino, Akinobu Tokunaga, YueYun Gao and Kayo Miura, Frontiers in Psychology, epub April 14, 2014. (Thanks to investigator Neil Martin for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, at Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan, explain:

“[We] tested whether experiencing a weight during museum exhibit appreciation affects the beholders’ satisfaction and recognition memory for the exhibits. An experiment was performed at a museum exhibiting skeletal preparations of animals…. In the cued condition, participants were asked to lift up the weight stimuli during their observation of the four exhibits. In the uncued condition, participants observed the exhibits without touching the weight stimuli. After observation of the exhibits, the participants responded to a questionnaire that measured their impressions of the exhibits and the museum, and performed a recognition test on the exhibits. Results showed that memory performance was better and viewing duration was longer with weight lifting instruction than without instruction.”

Here’s further detail from the study: