Zhao, LY; Zhaoping, L; (2011) Understanding Auditory Spectro-Temporal Receptive Fields and Their Changes with Input Statistics by Efficient Coding Principles. PLoS Computational Biology , 7 (8) , Article e1002123. 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002123.

Preview

PDF 1325570.pdf Download (1MB)

Abstract

Spectro-temporal receptive fields (STRFs) have been widely used as linear approximations to the signal transform from sound spectrograms to neural responses along the auditory pathway. Their dependence on statistical attributes of the stimuli, such as sound intensity, is usually explained by nonlinear mechanisms and models. Here, we apply an efficient coding principle which has been successfully used to understand receptive fields in early stages of visual processing, in order to provide a computational understanding of the STRFs. According to this principle, STRFs result from an optimal tradeoff between maximizing the sensory information the brain receives, and minimizing the cost of the neural activities required to represent and transmit this information. Both terms depend on the statistical properties of the sensory inputs and the noise that corrupts them. The STRFs should therefore depend on the input power spectrum and the signal-to-noise ratio, which is assumed to increase with input intensity. We analytically derive the optimal STRFs when signal and noise are approximated as Gaussians. Under the constraint that they should be spectro-temporally local, the STRFs are predicted to adapt from being band-pass to low-pass filters as the input intensity reduces, or the input correlation becomes longer range in sound frequency or time. These predictions qualitatively match physiological observations. Our prediction as to how the STRFs should be determined by the input power spectrum could readily be tested, since this spectrum depends on the stimulus ensemble. The potentials and limitations of the efficient coding principle are discussed.

Download activity - last month

Export as JSONCSVXML

Download activity - last 12 months

Export as XMLCSVJSON

Downloads by country - last 12 months

Export as CSVJSONXML

Archive Staff Only

View Item