AIM Framework glossary
Salient
Canonical definition
Salient is the binary state of being worthy of attention: the condition an Object or Individual is in when it presents a signal that puts it in the running for an observer's attention, as distinct from being valued. Being Salient is on the observed's own side of the emission-valuation channel, a state the observed can act toward by emitting attention-attracting signals (the Salience-Emission Asymmetry), though the observed controls only a curated subset of the signals that produce it and never the evaluation that follows. Salient is binary (worthy of attention or not); Salience, the observer's evaluation of how much the attention-worthy thing matters, is a gradient the observer alone computes. An Individual's operative want is therefore correctly stated as "be Salient so I can get what I need," not "be valued": the observed seeks the state of being worthy of attention so that provisioning can follow, because the degree of the evaluation is not theirs to set.
Explanation
Salient means worth attending to. It is an on-or-off thing: either something crosses the threshold that puts it in the running for attention or it does not. You can act to make yourself worth noticing, raise your hand, raise your voice, but you cannot decide how much you are then valued, because that happens inside the other person. Being worth attention is your side of the line; what they make of you is not.
Epistemic status
Framework-Specific Construct. The observed-side, binary counterpart of Salience.