Context influences our Perception

Art inside a Gallery and art inside a coffee shop are perceived differently.
Because context influences our perception.

Washington Post has conducted an experiment for this.

It has commissioned the world famous musician Joshua Bell to perform by a crowded Metro Station of Washington.

Joshua is a child prodigy and a genius with violin. That day he played one of his mosy elegant creations with a violin that costed at least 3 million dollars, but at the suburban station of Washington DC.

Street performance is a common thing in the big cities of Europe. The performers are not exactly beggars.
The whole episode was secretly video recorded by The WP’s crew to study the effect of the song on the commuters.

Observation

At four minutes , one old lady threw a coin while hurrying for her train. Six minutes after that one old man leaned for one minute to listen to this most elegant violin extravaganza but hurried away when his train arrived. In the 45 minutes of the show, a total of 27 people stopped at the show. 32 dollars were collected.
As the WP noted 1075 people passed by without a glance at this super show.

But when Joshua Bell played the same music in the Boston Philharmonic, the auditorium was jam packed. The minimum ticket for the show was sold at $100.

Context Decides our Perception.