AE Files

An archive of the mechanics of attention. Eight files on how it gets captured, where it fails, who sells it and how it is held.

Inattentional Blindness Attention Residue

LimitsThe hardware. Attention is a narrow channel with a fixed width, and what falls outside it goes unrecorded. These files document what the mind misses while it is busy looking, and what it carries from the last task into the next one.

Orienting Reflex Variable Reward

CaptureThe levers. Reflexes older than language decide where the eyes go before any decision is made. These files document the two oldest: the reflex that turns the head toward anything new, and the reward schedule that keeps the hand coming back.

Attention Economy

MarketThe trade. Once attention could be counted it could be sold. This file follows the idea from a one-cent newspaper in 1833 to the sentence that described the economy in 1971 and the essay that popularized the name in 1997.

Flow Deep Work Boredom

PracticeThe response. Attention holds under known conditions. These files document three of them: a task at the edge of skill, a block of hours behind a closed door, and an empty stretch with nothing to do.