Attention Nominates; Explicit Action Commits
Referential Return as a privacy-aware bridge between physical attention and digital context
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.
Current evidence state
SPECIFIED
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Publication
- Full paper:
/papers/p17-attention-cursor - Claim ledger:
content/papers/p17-attention-cursor/claim-ledger.json - Source manifest:
content/papers/p17-attention-cursor/source-manifest.json - Diagrams: 3
- Approximate body length: 1,315 words
Demonstrations
d12-attention-cursor-referential-return
Benchmarks
b08-attention-cursor
Public boundary
The research entry publishes a public-safe architecture and evidence record. It does not grant implementation rights or expose restricted claim-ready material.