This study aims to examine how repeated exposure to the same family of digital technologies and the accumulation of technological touchpoints along a phygital heritage tour shape visitors’ attention, learning and fatigue.
A naturalistic eye-tracking study was conducted during guided tours of Oviedo’s Gothic cathedral. Seventy-two visitors followed an itinerary that alternated nine technology-enhanced stations with heritage-only segments. Eye-movement metrics (time to first fixation, number of fixations, dwell time and share of gaze to guide/technology) were linked to a short post-visit questionnaire on learning, overload, satisfaction and technophilia. Linear mixed models and regressions were used to test the effects of repetition and accumulation, controlling for visitor and phase characteristics and adjusting p-values for multiple comparisons.
Repetition within a technology family did not improve search efficiency or dwell on digital areas of interest but significantly increased the proportion of gaze allocated to the guide, revealing a distinctive guide–technology coordination effect. The intensity of gaze on technology across the tour was not associated with behavioural signs of fatigue or higher reported overload, and technophilia showed only weak, non robust relationships with overload.
This study offers field-based evidence from a UNESCO-listed Gothic cathedral, treating heritage as a symbolically dense environment where authenticity sensitivity and interpretive authority shape how digital interventions are received. By integrating in situ mobile eye-tracking with a brief perceptual validation layer, the paper develops an empirically grounded account of guide–technology coordination as a socio-attentional mechanism rather than a mere efficiency effect. The findings translate into context-aware design principles for phygital heritage services, highlighting how temporal pacing and alternation can embed digital supports without displacing human mediation or amplifying fatigue under moderate technological density.
