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288 pp. per issue, 6 x 9,
illustrated
Founded: 1989
ISSN 0899-7667
E-ISSN 1530-888X
2008 ISI Impact Factor: 2.378

Neural Computation

September 1, 2001, Vol. 13, No. 9, Pages 2031-2047
Posted Online March 13, 2006.
(doi:10.1162/089976601750399290)
© 2001 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Attention Modulation of Neural Tuning Through Peak and Base Rate

Hiroyuki Nakahara

RIKEN Brain Science Institute, Wako, Saitama, 351-0198, Japan

Si Wu

RIKEN Brain Science Institute, Wako, Saitama, 351-0198, Japan

Shun-ichi Amari

RIKEN Brain Science Institute, Wako, Saitama, 351-0198, Japan

PDF (197.795 KB) PDF Plus (168.815 KB)

This study investigates the influence of attention modulation on neural tuning functions. It has been shown in experiments that attention modulation alters neural tuning curves. Attention has been considered at least to serve to resolve limiting capacities and to increase the sensitivity to attended stimulus, while the exact functions of attention are still under debate. Inspired by recent experimental results on attention modulation, we investigate the influence of changes in the height and base rate of the tuning curve on the encoding accuracy, using the Fisher information. Under an assumption of stimulus-conditional independence of neural responses, we derive explicit conditions that determine when the height and base rate should be increased or decreased to improve encoding accuracy. Notably, a decrease in the tuning height and base rate can improve the encoding accuracy in some cases. Our theoretical results can predict the effective size of attention modulation on the neural population with respect to encoding accuracy. We discuss how our method can be used quantitatively to evaluate different aspects of attention function.

Cited by

Shun-ichi Amari, Hiroyuki Nakahara. (2005) Difficulty of Singularity in Population Coding. Neural Computation 17:4, 839-858
Online publication date: 1-Apr-2005.
Abstract | PDF (137 KB) | PDF Plus (170 KB) 
Si Wu, Shun-ichi Amari, Hiroyuki Nakahara. (2002) Population Coding and Decoding in a Neural Field: A Computational Study. Neural Computation 14:5, 999-1026
Online publication date: 1-May-2002.
Abstract | PDF (262 KB) | PDF Plus (301 KB) 

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