On Wednesday, 4 June, at the Academy Palace in Brussels, the research conducted by the Vrije University Amsterdam team was presented by Dr. Kalliopi Ioumpa as part of the Spring Series 2025, organized in collaboration by the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts (KVAB) and the Academic Cultural Forum.
The event marked the final chapter of the Spring Cycle, a day-long gathering exploring the increasingly central role of visual perception in culture, creativity, education and technology. It brought together scientists, artists, technologists, creatives, and policy makers to discuss emerging intersections between visual culture, visual thinking, and cultural participation and featured lectures, workshops and an art exhibition.
The presentation by Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, titled “The Transformative Potential of Cultural Heritage: A Neuro-Physiological Study” authored by Kalliopi Ioumpa, John Stins, and Nadia Dominici, was met with great interest as it brings together multiple neuro-physiological methodologies in a single session, enriched by key stimulus materials contributed by META-MUSEUM partners with deep expertise in the cultural sector.
This interdisciplinary study investigates how encounters with cultural heritage influence cognitive and emotional states, drawing on tools from neuroscience, psychology, and embodied cognition. Grounded in recent research highlighting the positive impact of the arts on wellbeing, the project adopts an experimental paradigm involving audiovisual heritage stimuli, emotionally validated imagery and multimodal physiological recordings.
More specifically, during the experiment participants stand on a force platform to measure subtle postural shifts through Center of Pressure (COP) data and at the same time, EEG recordings capture brain activity, and a wearable wristband monitors physiological arousal via skin conductance. The research team examines how emotionally resonant heritage stimuli influence posture (e.g., forward or backward lean), attentional focus (reduced sway variability), and emotional-motivational states (frontal alpha asymmetry), as well as cognitive load (theta-band activity). The combination of these measures will offer a nuanced view of how cultural heritage can elicit embodied, affective, and cognitive responses.
The presentation emphasized META-MUSEUM’s view on cultural heritage and how it is not a static entity, but a living and embodied experience, capable of fostering emotional resonance, introspection and empathy. By using neurophysiological methods in concert with qualitative insights, the META-MUSEUM project aims to inform new ways for cultural institutions and professionals to design emotionally and mentally enriching engagements with heritage.
In an era where cultural participation is increasingly mediated by digital technologies, this study underscores the importance of grounding innovation in the emotional and somatic dimensions of human experience. The project explores how neuroscience and the humanities can jointly contribute to more inclusive, impactful, and human-centered cultural environments.