{
  "abstract": "Computing devices usually require the user to name or select the object under discussion. In the physical world, however, people routinely establish reference through attention: they look at a chair, return their attention to a partner, and say “that one.” A device with camera, gaze, pose, spatial, or contextual inputs could infer candidate referents—but acting directly on inferred gaze creates the classic “Midas touch” problem, in which looking becomes accidental command. Attention Cursor, also called Referential Return, separates nomination from commitment. A transition of attention from a real-world candidate back to a device nominates a ranked referent set. The system displays the candidate and uncertainty. A separate explicit action—tap, voice, button, dwell confirmation, or accessible equivalent—commits the reference. The architecture treats attention as a weak, revocable context signal rather than authority. It can reduce the need to describe nearby objects, preserve conversational flow, and bridge physical and digital context. It must also survive false nomination, shared spaces, privacy constraints, disability, and devices without eye tracking. The current work is a well-specified interaction hypothesis with simulation-ready contracts. No live gaze-accuracy result is claimed.",
  "author": "Hayden Lindley",
  "category": "Human–Computer Interaction",
  "claims": {
    "claims": [
      {
        "claim_id": "P17-C01",
        "evidence_refs": [
          "P17-S01",
          "P17-S02",
          "P17-S03"
        ],
        "limitations": [
          "No live sensor implementation is claimed."
        ],
        "public": true,
        "scope": "Interaction and authority contract.",
        "statement": "Referential Return separates uncertain attention-based nomination from explicit committed action.",
        "status": "SPECIFIED"
      },
      {
        "claim_id": "P17-C02",
        "evidence_refs": [
          "P17-S01"
        ],
        "limitations": [
          "Simulation does not validate gaze accuracy."
        ],
        "public": true,
        "scope": "Browser demo design.",
        "statement": "The interaction can be demonstrated safely through a camera-free deterministic simulation.",
        "status": "VERIFIED_MECHANISM"
      },
      {
        "claim_id": "P17-C03",
        "evidence_refs": [
          "P17-S01"
        ],
        "limitations": [
          "Requires live study and accessibility evaluation."
        ],
        "public": true,
        "scope": "Chair/shared-space user study.",
        "statement": "Referential Return reduces reference-establishment time without increasing false commits or privacy cost.",
        "status": "AWAITING_LOCAL_RUN"
      }
    ],
    "disclosure_note": "Claims marked non-public in the authored ledger are omitted from this public artifact.",
    "paper": "p17-attention-cursor",
    "version": "0.1.0",
    "withheld_claim_count": 0
  },
  "date": "2026-07-27",
  "diagrams": {
    "diagrams": [
      {
        "brief": "World object attention → return to device → candidate Halo → explicit commit → exact task input.",
        "format": "svg",
        "id": "P17-F01",
        "path": "/diagrams/p17-attention-cursor/P17-F01.svg",
        "status": "source-generated conceptual architecture",
        "title": "Referential return sequence"
      },
      {
        "brief": "Weak sensor evidence feeds candidate set; only explicit user commit crosses the authority gate.",
        "format": "svg",
        "id": "P17-F02",
        "path": "/diagrams/p17-attention-cursor/P17-F02.svg",
        "status": "source-generated conceptual architecture",
        "title": "Nomination versus authority"
      },
      {
        "brief": "Four conditions and metrics, emphasizing false commit and correction cost.",
        "format": "svg",
        "id": "P17-F03",
        "path": "/diagrams/p17-attention-cursor/P17-F03.svg",
        "status": "source-generated conceptual architecture",
        "title": "Chair experiment"
      }
    ],
    "paper": "p17-attention-cursor"
  },
  "evidence_state": "SPECIFIED",
  "id": "p17-attention-cursor",
  "institution": "Glyphd Labs",
  "integrity": {
    "claim_ledger_sha256": "bad875763af3068ecb4a2579a6e3869dc698f8831a32fde91d91654154a86c9f",
    "paper_mdx_sha256": "0864d9e9dbb3f9974959a7ee9f840f42f6304b604d028c3508008e6ba974553f"
  },
  "public_disclosure_boundary": "This edition publishes the public-safe interaction contract and study design. It excludes private sensor data, biometric models, confidential device integrations, and patent-claim language. No gaze accuracy, health inference, or production camera capability is claimed.",
  "publication_class": "public-safe working paper",
  "publication_url": "https://www.glyphd.com/papers/p17-attention-cursor",
  "revisions": {
    "paper": "p17-attention-cursor",
    "revisions": [
      {
        "date": "2026-07-27",
        "summary": "First synthesized public-safe institute edition compiled from the Glyphd project corpus.",
        "version": "0.1.0"
      }
    ]
  },
  "schema_version": "1.0.0",
  "slug": "p17-attention-cursor",
  "sources": {
    "notes": "Internal source paths are provenance references. Public publication must expose only approved public-safe excerpts or archived public artifacts.",
    "paper": "p17-attention-cursor",
    "sources": [
      {
        "date": "2026-07",
        "id": "P17-S01",
        "path": "CUTTING EDGE OR NEW project folder",
        "title": "Attention Cursor / Referential Return project conversation"
      },
      {
        "date": "2026-07-18",
        "id": "P17-S02",
        "path": "GLYPHD-V1-MASTER-SPEC-LOCKS-AND-EXPERIMENT-PLAN-v0.1.md",
        "title": "Glyphd V1 declared presence and threshold consent invariants"
      },
      {
        "date": "2026-07-25",
        "id": "P17-S03",
        "path": "MCE-1-SYSTEM-CONTRACT-v0.1.md",
        "title": "MCE-1 authority and event contracts"
      },
      {
        "date": "2026-07-12",
        "id": "P17-S04",
        "path": "GLYPH-DESK-MASTER-SPEC.v1.md",
        "title": "Glyph Desk Capture and Project Core contracts"
      }
    ],
    "version": "0.1.0"
  },
  "subtitle": "Referential Return as a privacy-aware bridge between physical attention and digital context",
  "title": "Attention Nominates; Explicit Action Commits",
  "version": "0.1.0"
}