Introduction

This chapter reviews studies of visitor attention conducted and published before 1940 represented by the work of Gilman, Robinson, Melton, and Porter. Gilman identified common design problems but others overlooked his message because of the introduction of 'museum fatigue'. Robinson recognized that there is no one simple explanation for these results, and that comparing the museum visitors and laboratory participants is fraught with methodological difficulties. Arthur Melton, one of Robinson's students, expanded Robinson's work on visitor attention. Robinson and Melton did not recognize how important choice might be in the visitor experience. Mildred Porter, another of Robinson's students, published her dissertation work in still another American Association of Museums monograph. She tracked visitors through the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University, recording the circulation pathway, where visitors stopped, and the duration of stops.