In the study of the Passport gallery, 41 visitors were randomly chosen from among visitors approaching the gallery. Ranging in age from 5 to 75, 21 subjects were male, 20 female. They were asked to visit the gallery in any manner that they felt was natural for them and their partner(s). They were then tracked through the gallery, with an observer noting on a floor plan where they went, paused, and stopped, as well as what they did and said. When visitors indicated that they had completed their visit to the gallery, they accompanied the observer to a nearby room where they were interviewed. The first part of the interview consisted of survey questions eliciting demographic and lifestyle information about them and their families as well as queries concerning their overall visit to the museum. Subjects were then asked to "draw a map" of the gallery on a plain, 8 1/2 by 11 inch piece of paper. Following this, the observer initiated an open-ended interview, based on the model presented in McCracken 1988, which was structured around the visitors' narrative account of their trip through the gallery.
A first, semiotic analysis was made of the maps and interviews, without the analyst knowing which subjects produced which maps and which interviews. This included a structural-generative analysis, described in detail in Courtés 1991 and Floch 1988, 1990, for verbal texts, and in Semprini forthcoming, for the maps. A pragmatic discourse examination of these texts was also made, following the model described in Fouquier 1986‹see Figure 2‹ and 1988; (for a more complete description of the methods used, see Umiker-Sebeok 1992). On the basis of these analyses, visitors were classified into four major groups, representing four primary reception themes or strategies, as described below.

Figure 2: Figural Analysis of Communication (from E. Fouquier 1986, p. 260)

With this classification in hand, the 54 permanent gallery exhibits were analyzed according to which types of visitors were attracted to them and which were not, and whether or not they provided different types of visitors with something approaching an optimal experience (as judged by their descriptions in interviews); for a discussion of how Csikszentmihalyi's theory of optimal experience (1990) was used in this study, see Umiker-Sebeok 1992. Using the same sociosemiotic methods used for the analysis of interview narratives, a cross-section of exhibits of varying degrees of attractiveness and success in providing optimal experiences was analyzed in detail in order to provide an explanation of visitor interpretations and experiences in terms of the three stages of the collapsed act of the artefact (see Umiker-Sebeok 1992 for a discussion of how George Herbert Mead's collapsed act of the artefact, given a Peircean interpretation, was used in this study). In other words, how successful were exhibits in attracting one or more groups through the three stages of interaction, and why?

 
Four Strategies of Reception

 (1) Pragmatic Reception Strategy

Based on the figural analysis of the interviews (schematically represented in Figure 2), the Pragmatic Reception Strategy (which accounted for 29% of all visitors, ranging in age from 7 to 75), was characterized as follows (see the schema in Figure 3):

Figure 3: Four Major Interpretive Strategies (based on J-M Floch, Sous les signes, les strategies)

The primary figure of reception is utility, with the gallery considered as a type of (work)shop for the acquisition of discrete, routinized skills or ideas and the optimal experience defined as the efficient accumulation of a store of either new information which has one or more concrete applications outside the museum setting, or new applications for existing facts. The primary image of the message sender (called the constructed message sender) (i.e., the positions the sender attributes to himself and including the relationship between the sender and what is said) is that of an experienced (but not necessarily professional) instructor. The primary image of the message receiver (called the constructed receiver) is that of problem-solving learner or apprentice. The primary figure of enunciation (specifying the relation(s) (e.g., pedagogical, ludic, persuasive) within the message between the constructed sender and the constructed receiver) is pedagogical. The primary figure of the world as represented in the message (i.e., the constructed world) is that of a reality to be controlled through the application of appropriate methods. The primary figure of modalization (representing the type of relationship existing between the constructed sender and the reality about which s/he speaks) is that of a person who has mastered control of a part of the world. The primary figure of implication (characterizing the relations that the constructed receiver is supposed to establish with the reality being shown in the message) is that of mastery of means-ends relationships with the world. The primary figure of expression (translating the relationship that the sender maintains with his own message as a formal product (e.g., as the implied author, paid presenter of a message authored by someone else, etc.) is that of implied author or a professional communicator talking about someone else's mastery. The primary figure of perception (constructing the relations between the constructed receiver and the message as an ensemble of signs, e.g., active vs. passive message reception) is that of passive receiver of information but in the interest of actively using the information outside the museum context. The primary figure of representation (including the different "manners" or "forms" the message adopts in order to present reality (e.g., direct vs. indirect, as narrative or analytical discourse) are direct, factual descriptions and demonstrations with possibility for repetition by the visitor.

Figure 4: Four Major Cognitive Processing Styles (based on W. Lowen, Dichotomies of the Mind)

The Pragmatic strategy, emerging from the application of a communications model, bears a striking resemblance to the cognitive processing style which Lowen (1982) calls the "Organizer." Organizers (Pragmatic visitors) are driven by the need to have concrete things which can be put in order. They like to have factual, measurable, concrete information which can be easily arranged in some sequential order. Pragmatic visitors rely on having routines by which information can be quickly and efficiently processed, and are most comfortable when they already have developed such routines for what they are being shown (e.g., being told a story whose plot is generally familiar). They are visually oriented, and like tasks which call for matching logical structures with visual skills. They are easily swayed by how others think, but their locus of control is largely internal. They appear as efficient, detail-oriented, and in control. Interested in efficiency and order, and aversive to ambiguity or delayed responses, Pragmatic visitors seem to have a routine or process for everything, and will create a new routine to handle novel input. They are good with their hands and fine motor skills. Like Diversionary visitors but unlike Utopians and Critical visitors, they like to deal with concrete things and their locus of control is largely internal. Like Critical visitors but unlike Utopians and Diversionary visitors, they like also to deal with abstract things. To see how these characteristics came into play in the Passport gallery, consider the following excerpt from an interview with a nine-year-old Pragmatic girl (Interview Excerpt 1):
 

 I: What was the most interesting thing you saw in the gallery?
S: Um - when I made the snowflake.
I: When you made the snowflake. Okay, where was that?
S: Um - Well, we were just walking and this lady, this Chinese lady, was like explaining how to make a snowflake and I wanted to make a snowflake, so she helped me 'cause I was a little behind, and then you just cut little parts of it out, and then she pasted it on a piece of paper, and it can be a card now.
I: Okay. What did you experience when you were making the snowflake?
S: Well, I learned how to make a new snowflake, because I didn't know how to do that. My sister kept saying [?] taught me how to do that, but she never did.
I: How did that make you feel to be able to make the snowflake?
S: Happy, because I learned something, how to make the snowflake.
I: Did it remind you of something or someone?
S: Yeah, winter, it reminded me of winter, and it reminded me of my sister. She always made those kind of snowflakes but it kind of reminded me of that.

Interview Excerpt 1 -  9-Year-Old Pragmatic Girl Age (S4)

 The subject reveals in her speech that what made her happy about the snowflake-making activity was that she was assisted by an "expert" individual - the museum volunteer‹in acquiring a specific skill. Through the matching of signals (watch and listen to volunteer, then match her actions), this Pragmatic child was able to organize her perceptions and actions in such a way that she achieved an efficient ordering of the concrete things involved. In fact, this visitor went through the entire gallery looking for such experiences. The snowflake task also involved working with the hands, and fine motor skills, which Pragmatic visitors are particularly interested in and good at doing. It also was a highly visual task, which this type of visitor enjoys.

Figure 5: Map of the Passport Gallery Drawn by a 9-year-old Pragmatic Girl

The map that this visitor drew of the gallery (Figure 5) highlights her Pragmatic bias. Of the five displays she chose to feature in her "map", four are heavily Pragmatic in their appeal. The exhibit she labels "Drumbs" is an iconic representation of the Trinidad Drums display (no. 35 on the floor plan). This exhibit includes two drums and instructions on how to play simple tunes with them. The map element labeled "Storie Teller" was a volunteer, seated in the Imagining Section (around display no. 47), who told a folktale to visitors. The story was meant to stimulate the children's imagination, to help them imagine unusual, "possible worlds". In her interview, this subject indicated that this was one of her favorite experiences in the gallery, but not because of the story itself, which she could hardly remember and did not seem to have much of an interest in. Rather, what fascinated her was the performance of the storyteller, which provided the girl with useful instruction in "how to tell a story": how to sequence information in an orderly manner. (Note how this subject emphasizes the performance of the storytelling by the way she has rendered the storyteller facing the stools on which the children in the audience sat.) The map element labeled "Africa" refers to the Music of the World display (nos. 42 and 43 on the floor plan), which consists of headphones and glass cases filled with musical instruments and figurines of native musicians. Visitors listen to music from different parts of the world while looking at the instruments in the cases which would have created the music.

Two other characteristics of this subject's map are typical of Pragmatic visitors. First, she tends to quantify things: the two phones in her picture of the Music of the World display and the four drumsticks in the Drumbs picture. Second, she pays close attention to visual detail: the design of the snowflakes, the drumsticks, and the position of the stools for the storyteller's audience.

As in her other accounts, the girl's description of this experience was structured around the concrete sequence of actions she took while at the display:

I: Okay. And then where do you remember going in the gallery?
S: Um - I think it was seeing [...] the African, like little phones that you are supposed to put up to your ears and you can hear the music. And that was the second thing. They showed like dolls from Africa.
I: Okay. Can you describe more about that?
S: Um - the dolls [...] and I think there might have been some food from Africa in there. I can't remember. Then we just listened to the music.
I: You hear music?
S: Yeah.
I: How did that make you feel?
S: Like happy to know what African music sounded like.
I: Did it remind you of something?
S: No, not really.
I: Was there anything unusual or strange that you noticed about it?
S: I didn't think the music was going to sound like that. I thought it was going to sound a little different.
I: Really? And so, what did you do there?
S: We/for the Africa? We just listened to the music and looked at the dolls in the window.

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