Communicating environmental data through art: the role of emotion and memory in evoking environmental action

The study addresses how to more effectively communicate environmental data to environmental justice communities to motivate pro-environmental and risk-averse behaviors. Traditional informational campaigns and static visualizations often fail to translate knowledge into action (value–action gap). The authors investigate whether an interactive environmental art experience (Ripple Effect) versus a static booklet influences participants’ data interpretation, emotions, intentions to act, memory recall, and follow-through on environmental actions. Embedded in Project Harvest, a co-created community science program in Arizona communities impacted by mining and environmental burdens, the research explores the role of emotion and memory in mediating behavioral outcomes when communicating harvested rainwater quality data. The study poses six research questions on intentions to act, meaning-making, emotional responses, links between emotion and intention, memory recall after 5–6 months, and links between recall and action.

Prior work shows that increased environmental knowledge does not reliably produce pro-environmental behavior, known as the value–action gap. Visual and socially-engaged art can facilitate engagement, evoke emotional responses, and motivate intentions to act by creating immersive, multisensory, and reflective experiences that disrupt routines and strengthen group identity. Measuring emotion directly is challenging; thus linguistic sentiment analysis can serve as a proxy for affective stance in community settings. The authors build on environmental psychology and corpus linguistics, and on studies indicating that environmental art can enhance emotional responses and intentions to act, to test whether art-mediated data sharing can overcome barriers of traditional communication and produce durable memory and action.

Design: Case–control study within Project Harvest (2017–2020), a co-created community science program with four Arizona communities (Dewey-Humboldt, Globe–Miami, Hayden/Winkelman, Tucson). Participants collected harvested rainwater, soil, and plant samples for contaminant analyses. At the end of Year 1 (2018), participants were randomly assigned to one of two data visualization (vis) conditions: (1) booklet-only (control) and (2) Ripple Effect installation plus the same booklet (case). In Year 2, groups switched vis type. Data sharing events were conducted in participants’ preferred language (English or Spanish). Data visualization conditions: Booklet-only presented contamination data via strip plots with explanatory text and color coding, organized by contaminant type with standards/guidelines explained. Ripple Effect was an interactive, multi-sensory, 3-D art installation translating each participant’s data to sound-induced water vibrations and LED light cues at sound stations labeled by contaminant and comparative values; participants used personal data on flash drives to interact. Participants: Over 150 people engaged overall; Year 1 analyses focus on focus group participants (N=53) immediately post-event and follow-up interviewees who attended a Year 1 event (N=26) at 5–6 months post-event. Qualitative data collection: Post-event focus groups probed data interpretation, emotional reactions, intentions to change behavior, and feedback. Follow-up semi-structured interviews (in-person and phone, May–June 2019) assessed memory recall/knowledge retention, motivation/values, sharing with others, and environmental actions taken since the event. Qualitative analysis: Transcripts were coded in NVivo using inductive and deductive approaches. Intercoder reliability: focus groups kappa=0.52; interviews kappa=0.64. A sentiment analysis using Docuscope Global (v1.8.4; default English dictionary) quantified linguistic categories (Clusters and Dimensions) in focus group transcripts. Statistics: Chi-squared tests (SPSS v27) assessed relationships between coded responses (e.g., intention to act, memory recall, action) and data vis type. Two-tailed Wilcoxon rank-sum tests (R 3.6.2; RStudio) compared participant contaminant concentrations by vis type and compared Docuscope sentiment percentages by vis type. Visualization used ggplot2 and networkD3. Controls checked that contaminant concentrations did not confound results in the data-sharing cohort.

- Meaning-making and engagement: Ripple Effect participants frequently referenced spatial/temporal aspects and multisensory cues; 41% noted benefits to visual/spatial learning and multisensory engagement. 24% said Ripple Effect had greater impact than graphs alone; many valued complementarity of booklet and installation. - Data comparisons: Ripple Effect participants more often compared results across seasons (temporal changes). Booklet-only participants more often compared to other households and field blanks. Both groups equally compared to standards/guidelines (8/36; 22.2% each). - Emotional responses: Ripple Effect elicited more reports of surprise and concern; booklet-only elicited more feelings of being pleased/relieved. No significant differences in contaminant concentrations by vis type were observed for the data-sharing cohort. - Intention to act: Of 19 respondents, all Ripple Effect participants intended to act (n=12) versus 3 of 7 booklet-only participants (15.8% of total responses). A chi-squared test showed a significant relationship between intention to act and data vis type (p<0.05). Participants expressing concern all intended to act; those pleased/relieved (all in booklet-only) did not intend to act. - Sentiment analysis (focus groups): Booklet-only had higher “Information States” cluster (p=0.046), indicating more stative/reporting language. Ripple Effect had higher “FirstPerson” (p=0.008) and “Metadiscourse Cohesive” (p=0.030), indicating more self-referential framing and cohesive, guiding discourse. - Memory recall and action (5–6 months): 10 participants specifically recalled details of the event/data, 80% of whom were in Ripple Effect; 6 recalled generally, 83% in booklet-only. Memory recall vs vis type was significant (p<0.05). All participants with specific recall took environmental action; those with general recall reported no new action. More Ripple Effect participants took action (n=7) than booklet-only (n=2). Actions included increasing rainwater use when safe (n=6) and modifying use when unsafe (n=3), aligning with correct data interpretation. - Preferences (Years 1+2): Among participants who experienced both formats, 67% preferred Ripple Effect; 33% preferred booklet-only. - Demographic observations: Regardless of vis type, 90% of women changed rainwater use vs 60% of men; 90% of adults (36–64) changed behavior vs 50% of seniors (65+).

The findings indicate that environmental art can bridge the value–action gap by eliciting stronger emotional engagement, heightened attention, and embodied, multisensory understanding of personal environmental data. Ripple Effect’s interactive, 3-D, and temporal qualities fostered surprise and concern, first-person framing, and cohesive discourse among participants, which translated into stronger intentions and greater follow-through months later. Specific memory recall, more prevalent in the art condition, was positively associated with action, suggesting that memorable experiences reinforce behavior change. While the booklet supported comprehension, portability, and sharing (serving as a boundary object), it tended to center data in a passive, familiar format that often led to relief or no action, despite sometimes higher contaminant concentrations. The art and booklet complemented each other: the art heightened engagement and personal connection; the booklet enabled continued study and dissemination. These results align with environmental psychology evidence that negative emotions can motivate action and demonstrate that participatory environmental art can shift environmental health mental models toward protective and pro-environmental behaviors.

Environmental art, exemplified by Ripple Effect, effectively communicates complex environmental health data, evokes emotions, strengthens memory, and increases the likelihood of pro-environmental and risk-averse actions. Co-designed static materials remain essential as complementary boundary objects to support interpretation and sharing. By providing multi-sensory, embodied experiences that intuitively link people to environmental media (water), art can close the value–action gap and raise environmental health literacy. The study contributes empirical evidence on emotion and memory as mechanisms linking art-mediated communication to action and documents long-lasting impacts five to six months post-event. Future work should broaden to diverse artworks, enhance multilingual sentiment tools, and refine portable, low-technology, and positively valenced stimuli designs to improve accessibility and effectiveness.

- Study design and measurement: Two monitoring approaches (lab vs DIY) produced different data scopes (23 contaminants vs arsenic and sulfur-reducing bacteria), potentially influencing interpretation and actions. In the Year 1 event cohort, booklet-only had higher mean contaminant concentrations overall, statistically significant for lead and copper; in the interview cohort, Ripple Effect participants had higher mean concentrations, which may have influenced follow-up actions. - Sentiment analysis constraints: Docuscope’s default dictionary is English-only; Spanish focus groups were translated to English, and the dictionary is not validated for such translations or for scientific terminology, potentially affecting sentiment categorizations. - Generalizability: Only one art installation (Ripple Effect) was evaluated; results may not generalize to all environmental artworks. - Practical/technical issues: Ripple Effect sometimes had technical difficulties (e.g., volume adjustments, overlapping sounds), potentially hindering comprehension; its stimuli indicated higher activity for higher contamination, which could be counterintuitive for some. Without staff assistance, some participants found it challenging to understand operation. For booklet-only, overlapping guideline lines and light color choices occasionally reduced readability. - Portability and access: The art installation requires event attendance and setup; the booklet is portable and easier to share, indicating trade-offs in dissemination.