The general public remains largely uninformed about how to judge what they see and hear. Visitors assume that the information they receive at living history museums is accurate. Many do not have the tools to distinguish the accurate from the inaccurate. The visual stimulation, watching interpreters milk cows or cook in the fireplace, enhances the experience for visitors. They choose to enjoy themselves rather than analyze the situation.
Staff often do the same thing.
This puts more pressure on interpreters at historic sites to move beyond the processes, the engaging setting, the visual and emotional stimulation, to use these as tools to get at real issues of a past time. Research begins with accumulating information to reflect multiple perspectives, and culminates in a finished product which engages visitors. At many living history sites, the final product is a demonstration of a daily or seasonal task or process. Understanding the process requires a different sort of research method than that employed in applied history, one labeled experimental archaeology. For many living history practitioners, including at least one professional historian who dons costumes, lives in a tenant house, and cooks possum, there is great value in practicing experimental archaeology.