Beyond immersion: disentangling the technological and social drivers of visitor satisfaction in XR art exhibitions

Introduction: Although Extended Reality (XR) has fundamentally reshaped curatorial practices in art exhibitions, the psychological mechanisms underlying technology acceptance and revisit intention remain poorly understood. Current research has largely focused on hardware fidelity and passive sensory immersion, providing limited insight into the socio-psychological drivers of user experience and continuous visiting behavior. Methods: To address this, we developed and validated an integrated socio-technical framework that links XR technological capabilities (presence, immersion, and interactivity) with a simplified, context-adapted version of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT2), alongside multidimensional viewing satisfaction and revisit intention. We analyzed survey data from 387 participants with direct experience of XR art exhibitions using a two-step structural equation modeling (SEM) approach. First, confirmatory factor analysis was conducted for psychometric validation of the measurement model. Second, path analysis was employed to test the proposed hypotheses using a bias-corrected bootstrap approach to verify the mediation effects. Results: < 0.001) positively predicted viewing satisfaction, with socio-psychological factors showing marginally stronger predictive power. Interactivity and social influence emerged as core drivers, challenging the prevailing "isolationist paradigm" of head-mounted display-based XR. The simplified UTAUT2 exerted a significant partial mediating effect on the relationship between technological affordances and viewing satisfaction, while viewing satisfaction fully mediated the link between the UTAUT2 framework and revisit intention. Discussion: This study offers a more structured socio-technical explanation of XR user experience and provides practical guidance for immersive art exhibition practitioners seeking to enhance revisit intention. These findings extend existing theories by integrating socio-psychological factors with technological affordances, highlighting the importance of social influence in immersive exhibition contexts.