Guest Talk: Prof. Ian Roderick on the Dromoeconomics of Visual Attention -- RCC 329

The Dromoeconomics of Visual Attention

Prof. Ian Roderick, Communication Studies, Wilfrid Laurier University

Attention Aware Systems (AAS) are computational systems engineered so
as to be able to adapt to as well as support human attentional
processes. While much of computer and information science has promised
systems that will allow users to access, use, and distribute information
more quickly and efficiently, there is increasing concern that the human
user does not possess sufficient cognitive processing capabilities to
adequately process these informational flows. These systems are intended
to serve as a corrective so as to augment human attentional limitations
by employing Attentive User Interfaces (AUI), which adaptively convey
information in a manner that is in-step with the current cognitive load
of the human user. Such systems are premised upon an understanding of
human attention as a limited resource that must be carefully managed so
as to ensure that there is not a diminishing return upon the increasing
acceleration of informational flows. In this way, the visual attention
of the user/employee comes to be crucial but difficult to capture labour
within an attention economy. Understood in the context of what Armitage
terms hypermodern managerialism, AAS signal a revitalization of the
heady promises of early 20th century scientific management but with an
important difference. While Taylor, Münsterberg, et al promised
increasing efficiencies through the micro-observation and organization
of material labour processes, these new systems promise to extend the
cull of efficiencies through the micro-management and modulation of
immaterial labour as well.