{"schema_version":1,"research_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp05_external_evaluation_20260803","source_assessment_id":"invariant_mode_decomposition_design__art_aesthetics:P3:v0","cell_id":"invariant_mode_decomposition_design__art_aesthetics","search_queries":["museum exhibition visitor movement tracking transition matrix Markov chain route study","museum visitor circulation space syntax exhibition layout empirical study","museum visitor tracking indoor positioning exhibition evaluation official guidance","Smithsonian exhibition evaluation visitor movement dwell time museum official","site:aam-us.org museum visitor studies evaluation exhibition design accessibility official","museum visitor research ethics consent privacy official guidance visitor studies association","Smithsonian exhibition evaluation visitor research movement official report","museum accessibility exhibition design circulation official guidelines ADA","museum visitor transition matrix eigenvalue spectral analysis circulation routes","art gallery visitor movement Markov chain eigenvectors exhibition","museum room transition matrix stationary distribution visitor flows","exhibition visitor routes intervention experiment signage layout movement study","site:bls.gov/ooh statisticians median pay 2025 museum curator median pay","site:bls.gov/oes museum technicians conservators statisticians wages 2024"],"sources":[{"source_id":"S1","title":"The Morphology of Exploration and Encounter in Museum Layouts","publisher":"Environment and Planning B / SAGE Publications","url":"https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1068/b4525","source_class":"PRIMARY_RESEARCH","publication_date":"1999","accessed_at":"2026-08-03","claims_supported":["Analysis of eight art museums found that layout structures visitor exploration and encounter.","Museum layouts can impose deterministic sequences or probabilistically modulate circulation.","Curators and designers can use layout to shape possible experiences without imposing one rigid route."]},{"source_id":"S2","title":"Managing Crowded Museums: Visitors Flow Measurement, Analysis, Modeling, and Optimization","publisher":"Centorrino, Corbetta, Cristiani, and Onofri via arXiv","url":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.16830","source_class":"PRIMARY_RESEARCH","publication_date":"2020-06-30","accessed_at":"2026-08-03","claims_supported":["A real Galleria Borghese deployment reconstructed room-scale trajectories using consented wearable Bluetooth beacons and Raspberry Pi receivers.","Researchers estimated a room-to-room probability transition matrix and used it in a stochastic museum digital twin.","The study used trajectory clustering and simulation to support museum control and optimization decisions.","The authors found that an ordinary memoryless Markov chain generated unrealistic route bouncing and therefore introduced time- and history-dependent behavior.","Tracking infrastructure, calibration, trajectory reconstruction, visitor briefing, and museum constraints materially affect implementation scope."]},{"source_id":"S3","title":"British Museum: A Study of Spatial Layout and Visitor Movement Patterns","publisher":"Space Syntax Limited","url":"https://spacesyntax.com/project/british-museum/","source_class":"COMMERCIAL_FIRST_PARTY","publication_date":"undated; project conducted 2004–2005","accessed_at":"2026-08-03","claims_supported":["The British Museum commissioned a baseline study of visitor movement and spatial layout to improve visitor-flow patterns and engagement with the collection.","The commissioned work included movement observation, route traces, wayfinding and visibility analysis, option testing, simulation, capacity analysis, workshops, and design review.","The project identifies a real institutional adopter and a precedent for using circulation evidence in museum masterplanning decisions."]},{"source_id":"S4","title":"Analysis and Assessment of Spatial Configuration of Museum by the Investigation of Visitors' Movement Paths and Distributions","publisher":"Architectural Institute of Japan, Journal of Architecture and Planning","url":"https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/aija/83/747/83_859/_article/-char/en","source_class":"PRIMARY_RESEARCH","publication_date":"2018-05-30","accessed_at":"2026-08-03","claims_supported":["A museum study collected visitor exploration routes and snapshot distributions and assessed visit rate, repeat visits, density, and duration.","The study related observed visitor activity to space-syntax measures including integration, connectivity, choice, and entrance depth.","This establishes direct observational and spatial-analysis comparators to the proposed spectral audit."]},{"source_id":"S5","title":"Visitor Studies in Support of Exhibition Development","publisher":"Smithsonian Institution, Office of Policy and Analysis","url":"https://repository.si.edu/bitstreams/74b03c64-c165-41cf-ade7-58a20ce75606/download","source_class":"OFFICIAL_GUIDANCE","publication_date":"2005-01-10","accessed_at":"2026-08-03","claims_supported":["Smithsonian staff expressed interest in incorporating visitor studies more comprehensively and routinely into exhibition development.","The Smithsonian states that visitor studies can enrich exhibition decisions but remain imperfect and must be tailored to project risk and resources.","Visitor-study scope should be cost-effective, and trained museum staff, specialist offices, or contractors may conduct different stages."]},{"source_id":"S6","title":"Ethical Considerations: Measuring Socially Engaged Practice","publisher":"Museums Association","url":"https://www.museumsassociation.org/campaigns/museums-change-lives/measuring-socially-engaged-practice/ethical-considerations/","source_class":"OFFICIAL_GUIDANCE","publication_date":"undated","accessed_at":"2026-08-03","claims_supported":["Museum evaluation should inform participants about its purpose, use, and participation procedures in accessible language.","Consent forms and information sheets are identified as a practical museum-evaluation safeguard.","Evaluation methods and outcomes should account for participants' needs and potential harms from data capture."]},{"source_id":"S7","title":"ADA Standards for Accessible Design","publisher":"U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division","url":"https://www.ada.gov/law-and-regs/design-standards/","source_class":"GOVERNMENT_OR_REGULATOR","publication_date":"2010-09-15 standards adoption; webpage undated","accessed_at":"2026-08-03","claims_supported":["Covered facilities and programs have enforceable accessibility obligations under ADA Titles II or III.","Physical changes affecting usability can implicate accessibility requirements.","An accessibility review and veto are substantive constraints, not optional secondary outcomes, for a U.S. deployment."]},{"source_id":"S8","title":"Occupational Employment and Wages—May 2025","publisher":"U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics","url":"https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/ocwage_05152026.pdf","source_class":"GOVERNMENT_OR_REGULATOR","publication_date":"2026-05-15","accessed_at":"2026-08-03","claims_supported":["May 2025 national mean hourly wages were $34.40 for curators, $27.60 for museum technicians and conservators, $39.98 for set and exhibit designers, and $35.84 for interior designers.","These wage anchors support order-of-magnitude estimates for museum, exhibition-design, installation, and review labor, before benefits, contracting overhead, equipment, participant costs, and specialized analytics."]}],"problem_evidence":{"support":"STRONG","rationale":"Multiple museum studies show that spatial configuration influences exploration, encounters, route choice, room visitation, density, and dwell patterns. A real Galleria Borghese campaign found skipped rooms, revisits, preferred circulation directions, and congestion, while the British Museum commissioned movement analysis to identify pinch points and under-used areas. Evidence supports the general problem and its decision relevance, but not the prevalence of curator-declared multi-anchor route conflicts specifically.","source_ids":["S1","S2","S3","S4"]},"stakeholder_evidence":{"support":"STRONG","rationale":"The British Museum is an identifiable historical adopter that commissioned movement and layout analysis for masterplanning, option testing, and strategic decisions. Smithsonian guidance records staff demand for more routine visitor studies during exhibition development and identifies an internal office capable of guiding or conducting them. No named institution has expressed demand for spectral eigenmode analysis specifically.","source_ids":["S3","S5"]},"prior_art":{"proximity":"SUBSTANTIAL_COLLISION","closest_analogues":[{"name":"Galleria Borghese transition-matrix digital twin","similarity":"Tracks real museum visitors, reconstructs room sequences, estimates a probability transition matrix, models recurrent routes, and optimizes controllable museum operations subject to constraints.","remaining_difference":"It targets crowding, ticketing, and entrance management using clustering and a time-varying history-aware model; it does not report a curator-preregistered multi-anchor route contract, eigenspectrum-based slow-mode decision rule, or reversible pre-opening spatial/textual intervention trial.","source_ids":["S2"]},{"name":"British Museum Space Syntax movement audit","similarity":"Combines observed paths, spatial accessibility, visibility, wayfinding, simulation, option testing, and design review to improve museum circulation and engagement.","remaining_difference":"It models geometric configuration and observed movement rather than decomposing an empirically estimated visitor-transition operator into resampled slow modes.","source_ids":["S3"]},{"name":"Space-syntax analysis across eight art museums","similarity":"Treats museum layout as a system that structures or probabilistically modulates visitor exploration and explicitly connects analysis to curator and designer control.","remaining_difference":"It analyzes syntactic layout properties rather than transition-operator persistence, spectral separation, held-out prediction, and modal sensitivity to one reversible intervention.","source_ids":["S1"]},{"name":"Observed-route and spatial-configuration assessment","similarity":"Combines visitor routes and occupancy-related measures with integration, connectivity, choice, and entrance-depth metrics to assess museum configuration.","remaining_difference":"It relies on aggregate and space-syntax indices rather than a stationary distribution, slow eigen-subspaces, and an intervention-specific modal prediction.","source_ids":["S4"]}],"distinctive_claim_remaining":"For one preregistered multi-anchor exhibition, a resampling-stable slow eigen-subspace of a held-out-valid visitor-transition operator will identify a curator-conflicting route concentration and predict which one approved reversible cue, sightline, seat, partition opening, or cross-reference change will reduce that subspace's persistence while preserving protected and accessible routes better than entry-proximity, per-work-propensity, heat-map, space-syntax, and history-aware transition-model comparators. The claim is falsified if the stationary model loses to history-aware prediction, modes are not separable or stable, no declared conflict exists, or the intervention fails or harms a protected route.","confidence":"MODERATE"},"implementation_evidence":{"support":"MODERATE","rationale":"Room-level sequence capture, transition-matrix estimation, route clustering, simulation, option testing, and museum visitor studies are all demonstrated practices. The proposal can use manual badge scans or consented beacons and standard numerical eigensolvers. However, S2 directly warns that memoryless stationary Markov models can generate unrealistic bouncing and that movement depends on elapsed time and route history. Small preview samples, sparse zone transitions, near-degenerate eigenvalues, crowding shifts, and adaptive selection of an intervention threaten validity. Consent, data minimization, institutional review, artist approval, and site-specific accessibility compliance remain deployment prerequisites.","source_ids":["S2","S3","S5","S6","S7"]},"scores":{"meaningful_impact":{"score":3,"rationale":"Circulation structure can affect which works and juxtapositions visitors encounter, and institutions already use movement evidence for design decisions. The size and frequency of multi-anchor failures and any artistic or visitor benefit remain unmeasured.","source_ids":["S1","S2","S3"]},"stakeholder_pull":{"score":4,"rationale":"The British Museum commissioned closely related movement and layout analysis, and Smithsonian staff expressed interest in routine visitor studies. Pull is for circulation evaluation generally, not for the spectral method.","source_ids":["S3","S5"]},"incremental_advantage":{"score":2,"rationale":"Slow-mode and residual diagnostics could expose persistent combinations missed by counts and heat maps, but no source shows improved decisions versus space syntax, clustering, simulation, or history-aware transition models. The strongest prior art indicates that a stationary memoryless operator may be misspecified.","source_ids":["S2","S3","S4"]},"distinctiveness_plausibility":{"score":3,"rationale":"The searched analogues substantially collide on tracking, transition matrices, modeling, optimization, and circulation-based design. The remaining combination—preregistered curatorial route contract, resampled slow eigen-subspaces, and a reversible preview intervention—is contrastive but not established as globally novel.","source_ids":["S1","S2","S3","S4"]},"technical_implementability":{"score":3,"rationale":"Tracking and transition estimation are demonstrated with inexpensive hardware, while option testing is established. Reliability depends on sufficient transitions, state definition, stationarity, mode separation, calibration, and history-aware comparators.","source_ids":["S2","S3"]},"adoption_authority_feasibility":{"score":3,"rationale":"Curators and exhibition teams are credible decision authorities, with accessibility and participant-protection constraints. A specific museum, artist representative, accessibility reviewer, privacy officer, and any required research-review body have not authorized this pilot.","source_ids":["S3","S5","S6","S7"]},"evidence_readiness":{"score":2,"rationale":"The problem, workflow components, and close analogues are documented, but there is no exhibition-specific dataset, prevalence estimate, mode-stability result, comparator performance, or intervention effect.","source_ids":["S1","S2","S3","S4","S5"]},"safety_net_benefit":{"score":3,"rationale":"Closed previews, consent, one reversible change, rollback, and an accessibility veto create a meaningful safety net. Residual and gap checks could prevent overinterpretation, but privacy, research-review, and site-specific accessibility procedures are not yet approved.","source_ids":["S5","S6","S7"]},"scalability":{"score":3,"rationale":"Low-cost sensors, manual sequence collection, reusable analysis code, and established museum visitor-study workflows make replication plausible. Every exhibition still requires new zone definitions, route objectives, calibration, approvals, and sufficient preview traffic.","source_ids":["S2","S3","S5","S8"]}},"score_confidence":"MODERATE","costs":{"first_evidence":{"band_2026_usd":"10K_TO_50K","scope":"One preregistered exhibition-specific feasibility study using existing staff, manual or borrowed sequence-capture equipment, approximately 60–120 consented preview participants across reference and intervention conditions, baseline models, bootstrap mode-stability analysis, qualitative route accounts, and a short decision report.","confidence":"MODERATE","assumptions":["The exhibition is already installed and no construction is required.","Museum staff can recruit preview visitors and operate sessions.","Only one reversible furniture, cue, sightline, or text change is tested.","Roughly 250–600 combined hours of curator, evaluator, analyst, designer, accessibility, and operations effort are valued using BLS wage anchors plus benefits or contracting overhead.","Participant incentives, temporary equipment, insurance, and review costs remain modest."],"source_ids":["S2","S5","S8"]},"initial_deployment_startup":{"band_2026_usd":"50K_TO_250K","scope":"Build a reusable one-museum capability: consent and deletion workflow, sequence-capture hardware or manual tools, secure data handling, zone and event schema, analysis pipeline, model-validation suite, staff training, accessibility review, and reporting templates.","confidence":"MODERATE","assumptions":["Room- or zone-level tracking is sufficient; no facial recognition, biometrics, or identity linkage is built.","Approximately 800–2,000 specialist and museum staff hours plus equipment and integration are required.","Existing IT, exhibition, legal/privacy, and accessibility functions can support the project.","Historic-building electrical or mounting constraints may require noninvasive portable equipment."],"source_ids":["S2","S3","S6","S7","S8"]},"operational_launch":{"band_2026_usd":"50K_TO_250K","scope":"Execute a fully governed audit and two-condition preview for one major exhibition, including recruitment, visitor operations, approved temporary installation changes, monitoring, analysis, artist and accessibility review, and final decision documentation.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["A major exhibition has enough preview access and visitors to estimate zone transitions.","The intervention is reversible but may require exhibit-designer, preparator, facilities, and security labor.","No permanent construction, public surveillance deployment, or major software procurement is included.","The upper end covers contractor-led evaluation, multiple preview days, and complex approval coordination."],"source_ids":["S2","S3","S5","S7","S8"]},"annual_recurring":{"band_2026_usd":"50K_TO_250K","scope":"Maintain hardware and analysis, refresh privacy and accessibility controls, train staff, and conduct one to three exhibition audits or drift rechecks per year.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["The museum reuses the core pipeline across exhibitions.","Each new exhibition still requires bespoke zone definitions, route contracts, validation, and approvals.","Recurring scope excludes permanent renovations and organization-wide real-time tracking.","Labor dominates cost; equipment replacement and secure storage are secondary."],"source_ids":["S2","S3","S5","S8"]}},"verified_pipeline_gates":{"externally_supported_problem":{"status":"YES","reason":"Primary research and commissioned museum work show that layout and circulation create recurring, under-used, congested, skipped, and route-structured areas that matter to exhibition decisions.","source_ids":["S1","S2","S3","S4"]},"externally_credible_adopter_or_authorizer":{"status":"YES","reason":"The British Museum commissioned a close circulation-analysis service, and the Smithsonian documents institutional interest and internal capability for exhibition-development visitor studies.","source_ids":["S3","S5"]},"distinct_testable_incremental_claim":{"status":"YES","reason":"The slow-eigen-subspace prediction and one-change intervention effect are contrastive against named count, heat-map, space-syntax, and history-aware transition comparators and have explicit falsifiers.","source_ids":["S1","S2","S3","S4"]},"bounded_next_evidence_step":{"status":"YES","reason":"A single exhibition, two closed-preview conditions, one reversible change, held-out prediction, bootstrap stability, protected-route checks, and predefined stop rules form a bounded field test.","source_ids":["S2","S5","S6","S7"]},"no_unresolved_safety_or_authority_stop":{"status":"UNCERTAIN","reason":"The design includes consent, rollback, and an accessibility veto, but no specific institution, artist representative, privacy officer, accessibility reviewer, or human-participant review authority has approved it; applicable law also depends on jurisdiction and tracking method.","source_ids":["S5","S6","S7"]},"credible_cost_scope_and_range":{"status":"YES","reason":"Closely related deployments identify the required tracking, modeling, option-testing, museum, and specialist tasks, while current BLS wages anchor broad resource-equivalent labor bands. Vendor prices and institution-specific overhead remain unverified.","source_ids":["S2","S3","S5","S8"]}},"next_evidence_step":"With one museum partner, preregister one exhibition-specific trial before collecting data. Define 8–15 zones, the curator's protected and conflicting routes, accessibility constraints, deletion rules, exclusion criteria, spectral-gap and bootstrap-stability thresholds, and minimum transition counts. Collect a reference preview of approximately 60 consented adults; compare held-out next-zone log loss and occupancy error for (a) entry proximity plus per-work visit propensity, (b) heat-map/count summaries, (c) space-syntax features, (d) a stationary transition operator, and (e) a time/history-aware transition model. Continue only if the stationary spectral representation adds held-out value and its relevant invariant subspace is stable. Then test one prospectively specified, curator/artist/accessibility-approved reversible change in a counterbalanced second preview with approximately 60 additional adults. Success requires a preregistered reduction in the conflicting subspace's persistence or occupancy contribution, no degradation of protected or accessible route metrics beyond tolerance, and qualitative route accounts consistent with—not merely post hoc fitted to—the change. Falsify the proposal if no conflict exists, transition sparsity prevents stable estimation, the history-aware comparator dominates, modes are inseparable, the predicted modal change fails, residuals remain structured, or any consent, privacy, safety, accessibility, or artist-approval condition fails.","blocking_evidence":["No exhibition-specific evidence shows that a curator-declared multi-anchor route conflict is present.","No evidence establishes that a stationary transition operator is adequate; close prior art found memory and elapsed-time dependence important.","No resampling result establishes a stable, separated slow mode or invariant subspace at realistic preview sample sizes.","No comparative evidence shows that spectral diagnostics improve prediction or intervention selection over space syntax, clustering, counts, or a history-aware transition model.","No live trial shows that one reversible design change moves the targeted modal quantity while preserving protected and accessible routes.","No named museum and complete authority chain have approved participant recruitment, data handling, artist-protected relationships, accessibility review, and rollback.","Institution-specific vendor, insurance, participant, IT-security, and legal-review costs are unavailable."],"research_disposition":"PARTNERED_RESEARCH_PROGRAM","world_novelty_boundary":"This eight-source bounded search establishes substantial adjacent and colliding practice but does not measure world novelty, patentability, freedom to operate, market size, realized impact, or the complete global literature. The only remaining evaluable distinction is the exhibition-specific combination of a preregistered multi-anchor route contract, resampling-stable slow eigen-subspaces, held-out comparator tests, and one approved reversible preview intervention.","arm":"COMPLETE_PROPOSAL_PORTFOLIO","candidate_version":0,"controller_recommendation":{"action":"STOP_EMPIRICAL_RESEARCH_NEEDED","repairable":false,"material_progress_observed":true,"progress_targets":["Secure one named museum partner and written approval from the curator, affected artist representatives, accessibility reviewer, privacy/data authority, and any required human-participant review body.","Demonstrate adequate reference-condition transition density and publish the zone-definition and missing-data rules.","Show that the stationary spectral model improves held-out prediction or decision-relevant reconstruction beyond entry-proximity, per-work propensity, space-syntax, and history-aware transition comparators.","Demonstrate bootstrap-stable spectral separation; otherwise report a joint invariant subspace and prohibit individual-mode interpretation.","Prospectively test one reversible intervention and meet the targeted modal-change threshold without degrading protected routes or accessibility.","Complete institution-specific privacy, retention/deletion, congestion, rollback, and cost plans."],"reason":"Web evidence verifies the general problem, credible institutional demand, technical components, close prior art, and a bounded falsifiable trial. It cannot establish the candidate's incremental value because that requires proprietary exhibition data, institutional approvals, consented preview fieldwork, and a live reversible intervention. The stationary-model concern identified in close prior art is especially consequential and must be resolved empirically."},"proposal_index":3}