Abstract: Due to ever-increasing information overload, human attention has evolved to the most critical parameter in the successful design of pervasive display systems. This article aims at the validation of physical effort as a suitable descriptor for attentional and perceptional behavior in interactive public display scenarios. For this purpose, we integrated our qualitative effort-based behavior description approach into Wickens’ established Saliency-Effort-Expectancy-Value (SEEV) attention model to compare predicted and observed attentional behavior and demonstrate its significance for attention mechanisms. The SEEV attention model is adapted to a public display scenario, with analysis focused on Minimum Required Effort (MRE) for the assessment of information. This attention modeling approach is evaluated based on data collected in an empiric study in an exhibition setting and is based on a database of 188 visitors. We employ different approaches of correlation analysis to evaluate the dependencies between required effort for information assessment and overt attention behavior which results in a maximum overall correlation score of 0.749 in a frame by frame correlation analysis.