Physical objectsoffered a higher level of emotional intensity and engagement for the user based upon the level of interest and complexity of the object. Users were highly engaged with the digital documentation providedwith the digital objects.
That sounds like "Emotional : Physical :: Intellectual : Digital". I don't know how I feel about that dichotomy.
the size
The recurring emphasis on size seems significant to me: for digital objects, size seems temporary since you can (usually) easily zoom in and out on something. (I've heard similar observations used as objections to digital facsimiles.) Why does size matter to us, especially in matters of affect?
Users’ experiences with the physical objectsencouraged inquisitivethinking and self-reflection but users were not as highly engaged with the documentation.
Could the discrepancy stem from a tendency by the digital user to see the artifact itself as textual and that it therefore merges intellectually with the documentation that surrounds it?
he results suggest that when users start with physical collections first, they spent more time on them than the digital collections,showing a mean of 964.3 for physical and 451.2 for digital. However, when users started with the digital collections, theytended to spend more time with them than the physical collections,showing a mean of 1150.0 for digital and 621.7 for physical.
I'm not really surprised: doesn't that indicate simply that people spend more time on artifacts the first time they encounter them (whether physically or digitally)?