A surprising new source of attention in the brain
scitechdaily.com
scitechdaily.com
We can currently tell where you're looking with eye trackers, but that doesn't work outside of a controlled environment where you can place a camera in front. And that is not the same as what you're paying attention to.
Imagine if your car detects a potential danger around you and could know if you've seen it already or not. Or if your IDE rearranged itself based on what you're paying attention to.
Not by itself worth the intrusiveness of an implant, but if you already have one, I wonder what we could do with it that wasn't possible before.
I like the sci-fi possibilities as you pointed out: an ide that rearranges itself based on focus or products that guide our awareness to salient facts (say a pedestrian in front of a car).
Perhaps taking that to another level: while learning or reading, are you paying attention to what the material "thinks" is appropriate.
Clearly, there's a gap between the different types of attention, and in this case the attention mechanic described is important but rudimentary (it doesn't seem like the neurons include conceptual focus instead of visual).
If we gain better understanding of these mechanisms, and the necessary technology exists, I could imagine learning material that provides users with conceptual paths/guides to follow in a much more intuitive way. It's not thinking for you, but guiding you towards the concept embedded in the material.
Towards this goal, if we could actively use information gained in accordance of the article, we may already be able to help children with some learning oriented tasks.
Exciting stuff.
It's like recursive irony.