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The Human Instrument

Overview of attention for article published in Scientific American, January 2008
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 25% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (91st percentile)
  • Above-average Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (54th percentile)

Mentioned by

blogs
1 blog
twitter
1 X user
wikipedia
26 Wikipedia pages

Readers on

mendeley
60 Mendeley
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Article details
Title
The Human Instrument
Published in
Scientific American, January 2008
DOI 10.1038/scientificamerican0108-94
Pubmed ID
Authors

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Timeline Attention over time Attention Score history
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Activity
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X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profile of 1 X user who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley demographics

Mendeley demographics

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 60 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.
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Geographical breakdown

Geographical breakdown
Country Count As %
Canada 1 2%
Unknown 59 98%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status
Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Ph. D. Student 8 13%
Student > Bachelor 7 12%
Professor 5 8%
Student > Doctoral Student 4 7%
Student > Master 4 7%
Other 12 20%
Unknown 20 33%
Readers by discipline
Readers by discipline Count As %
Psychology 6 10%
Medicine and Dentistry 6 10%
Computer Science 4 7%
Arts and Humanities 4 7%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 3 5%
Other 14 23%
Unknown 23 38%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 11. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 10 September 2026.
All research outputs
#3,939,783
of 32,442,164 outputs
Outputs from Scientific American
#2,684
of 7,720 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#17,156
of 217,088 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Scientific American
#18
of 42 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 32,442,164 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done well and is in the 87th percentile: it's in the top 25% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 7,720 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 37.0. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 64% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 217,088 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 91% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 42 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 54% of its contemporaries.