The Audimeter was the first device claiming to scientifically measure human attention.

Evidence

Late in 1936, an MIT professor named Robert Elder presented a new invention at a conference held in the ballroom of the Yale Club of New York. He called it the “Audimeter” and claimed that it could scientifically measure human attention, something no one had done before. The crude prototype had two rolls of paper in a reel-to-reel arrangement and was attached to a radio. When the radio was on, a stylus scratched a line onto the slowly turning scroll, indicating over time which stations the radio had been tuned to, and for how long. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 362

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces the Audimeter as the foundational device of audience measurement technology.
• XREF: Echoes modern attention metrics and surveillance-adjacent measurement of human behavior; connects to the reader’s attention/surveillance platform research. — connects to: Attention can be quantitatively measured and thereby bought and sold. — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!: A Manifesto of the…, 121; Mass-scale attention harvesting began with advertising in the 1890s-1920s — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 24
• SEED: A ‘the first machine that watched us watch’ angle tracing today’s audience analytics back to this 1936 paper scroll device.

Broader Connections

• Attention can be quantitatively measured and thereby bought and sold. #expands (0.85) — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!, 121
• Mass-scale attention harvesting began with advertising in the 1890s-1920s #qualifies (0.70) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 24