Van Gogh Storysperience

This research project helps Van Gogh Brabant in the redesign of 3 visitor centers in the province. It gives insight in the experience of potential visitors in relation to how stories are presented.

As research material, we created four 6-minutes videos about Vincent van Gogh’s life in Brabant: 2 videos simply mentioned factual information, and 2 videos aimed at emotions by using storytelling techniques. The research team employed different methods, such as brain research, questionnaires and memory interviews, to see if and how the experience of these 2 types of videos differed.

In the experience lab 42 participants were shown 2 of these videos. Brain research showed that the videos with storytelling lead to more attention than the factual videos without storytelling. Questionnaires demonstrated that videos with storytelling lead to a significant increase in people feeling ‘dragged into’ the story. People also had more detailed and vivid memories of these videos, and they identified stronger with Vincent, but especially with his brother Theo.

Partner: Van Gogh Brabant