What moves the museum? Evidence on indoor spatial and design principles shaping affective and aesthetic responses

The design of space plays a crucial role in shaping human perception, emotion, and cognition, particularly in cultural settings such as museums. However, systematic evidence on how specific indoor spatial and design features of museums influence affective and aesthetic responses remains limited, largely due to methodological constraints. This study examined the effects of four visual design principles (VDPs)-color, lighting, balance, and form dynamism-on affective states and aesthetic evaluations within a virtual indoor museum environment. To this end, eight virtual reality environments depicting the same museum space were developed, each manipulating one VDP at two opposing levels. Forty-seven participants (35 women, 12 men; M-age = 25.72, SDage = 7.52) explored all virtual reality environments in a fully counterbalanced within-subjects design and completed self-report measures of affective (pleasure, arousal, and dominance) and aesthetic responses following exposure to each environment. Cumulative link mixed models revealed significant effects of color, balance, and form dynamism on both affective and aesthetic outcomes. Warm-color palettes, symmetrical layouts, and curvilinear forms were consistently associated with higher ratings of pleasure and dominance, as well as aesthetic attraction and perceived immersion. In contrast, arousal did not vary significantly across conditions, and lighting manipulations did not produce reliable effects on any affective or aesthetic measure. These findings indicate that specific VDPs are selectively related to more positive affective states and aesthetic evaluations, in immersive virtual spatial contexts. From an applied perspective, the results provide preliminary evidence informing the design of museum-like environments, offering empirically grounded guidelines for optimizing visitor experience in cultural settings.