Catching eyes of social media wanderers: How pictorial and textual cues in visitor-generated content shape users’ cognitive-affective psychology

Documenting and sharing individual museum visits flourishes on social media. However, little research exists about how peer-generated content cues shape prospective visitors' perceptions and decisions. Drawing upon the stimulus‒organism‒response (SOR) framework, we holistically investigated the visual weight and attitudinal feedback of exhibition selfies and caption appeal types via eye-tracking technology and interviews, as well as the persuasive execution of accompanying texts using an experimental method. Two sequential studies were conducted: Study 1 empirically investigated the superiority of selfies and emotional titles in attracting visual attention and their influence on viewers' attitudinal evaluations through aesthetic judgments, mental imagery and flow experience during visual processing; Study 2 differentiated two types of textual stimuli (informational self-disclosure and emotional self-disclosure) that indirectly influence viewers’ behavioral intention through their inner organism changes in aesthetic experience and trust. The findings provide theoretical and marketing insights for tourism and cultural organizations to promote their social media communication.