This will, of course, always be in interaction with visitors’ own styles of visiting and
levels of interest; and visitors can refuse to pay attention even in relatively ‘coercive’ or
‘closed’ spatial arrangements in which they are channelled through a restrictive sequential
display. One classic study of visitors in an art exhibition suggested four different types of
visitors on the basis of styles of moving through gallery space: ants, fish, butterflies, and
grasshoppers (Veron and Levasseur 1983). The Science Museum work noted above
suggested that these should be regarded more as variable styles of movement, some
visitors, for example, beginning as ants and then switching to being butterflies later on,
and many varying styles frequently within the exhibition, partly in co-ordination with
visiting companions; and more generally this research found it hard to distinguish styles
as clearly as in the French study. Rather than regarding them as fixed dispositions of
visitors, they are probably best investigated in relation to different exhibition styles.