ABSTRACT Authenticity is often supposed to play an important role in natural history museums. Yet we know very little about how it affects the perception and appreciation of museum objects. In the present study, we examined children’s perceptions of real fossils and replicas. We explored four potential explanations underlying the appreciation of authentic objects: physical appearances, ideational motivations (i.e. authentic objects are simply ‘better’), associations and contagion (the belief that some quality or aspect of the object's history still inheres in the object). Seventy two children of 8–12 years old visiting a Dutch natural history museum were asked to rate the museum-worthiness of two replicas and two real dinosaur fossils in two states (whole object vs a small fragment). Results suggest that, although appearances and associations do play a role, the appreciation of real fossils is rooted in the contagious belief that previous contact of the object (e.g. with a living dinosaur) continues to act on the object after the physical contact has been severed. Altogether, our findings provide evidence that children look beyond superficial appearances and place great value on non-obvious features such as object history.

中文翻译：

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真实性很重要：孩子们欣赏博物馆物品时，他们的表情超越了外表

摘要在自然历史博物馆中，真实性通常被认为起着重要作用。但是，我们对它如何影响博物馆物品的感知和欣赏知之甚少。在本研究中，我们检查了儿童对真实化石和复制品的感知。我们探讨了欣赏真实物品的四种潜在解释：外表，意念动机（即真实物品简直是“更好”），联想和传染性（认为物品历史的某些品质或方面仍然存在于物品中的信念）。要求72名8至12岁的儿童参观荷兰自然历史博物馆，以评估两个州的两个复制品和两个真实的恐龙化石在博物馆中的价值（整个物体与一个小碎片）。结果表明，尽管外观和关联确实起着作用，但对真实化石的欣赏源于一种传染性的信念，即在断绝物理接触之后，物体先前的接触（例如与活动的恐龙）继续作用于物体。总而言之，我们的发现提供了证据，表明儿童不仅看似表面上的表情，而且对诸如物体历史之类的非显而易见的特征也非常看重。