Open Notebook Science - Was talking with [Andy](http://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=kJKbD3MAAAAJ&hl=en) this morning re 'TV no longer commands our full attention' **[1]** and the work we are doing with the BBC. It was interesting to consider the outcomes of the paper in the light of the [attention approximation](http://staff.cs.manchester.ac.uk/~browna/publications/MSO-CHI.pdf) work, also with regard to the implication that there is an increased cognitive load and we know in HCI that this is often seen as a pejorative thing; and that we need to keep cognitive flow to a minimum.

The world is becoming evermore precise - well at least our desire to measure it, quantify it, model it with ever more precision, is increasing. But it’s time to step back and think about just what these models are intended to accomplish. Our work on ‘attention approximation’ is all about understanding where people are placing their attention - while realising that there is a level of precision, moving above which, renders the model we are trying to create, useless - unfit for purpose.

Update 18 March 2013 - Paper now online. Humans are approximate creatures, we aren’t precise, and if this blog is anything to go by, we aren’t concise either! So then why do we persist in pursuing work which is ever more precise using tools which are sold on their precision. Eye-tracking is just one example of this - an individual gaze plot maybe precise, but start to add participants and you get gaze-spaghetti; nothing precise there.