How to measure the information gained from one symbol
How to measure the information gained from one symbol
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DOI：
10.1088/0954-898x/10/4/303
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发表时间：
1999-11-01
影响因子：
7.8
通讯作者：
Meister, M
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
DeWeese, MR;Meister, M
信息论提供了一个强大的框架来分析神经元如何代表感官刺激或其他行为变量。一个反复出现的问题是关于特定神经元反应所传达的信息量。在这里，我们表明，这个量的常用定义有一个严重的缺陷：在随后的观察神经活动积累的信息未能联合收割机相加。无论从理论上还是从分析人口编码的实际目的来看，相加性都是一种非常可取的性质。我们提出了一个替代措施的信息，每观察，并证明这是唯一的定义，满足可加性。新旧定义衡量的是神经代码的非常不同的方面，灵长类动物皮质中运动敏感神经元的视觉反应说明了这一点。我们的分析允许对几个已发表的结果进行额外的解释，这表明所研究的神经元正在远离其信息容量进行操作。
Information theory provides a powerful framework to analyse how neurons represent sensory stimuli or other behavioural variables. A recurring question regards the amount of information conveyed by a specific neuronal response. Here we show that the commonly used definition for this quantity has a serious flaw: the information accumulated during subsequent observations of neural activity fails to combine additively. Additivity is a highly desirable property, both on theoretical grounds and for the practical purpose of analysing population codes. We propose an alternative measure for the information per observation and prove that this is the only definition that satisfies additivity. The old and the new definitions measure very different aspects of the neural code, which is illustrated with visual responses from a motion-sensitive neuron in the primate cortex. Our analysis allows additional interpretation of several published results, which suggests that the neurons studied are operating far from their information capacity.