Information Theory And Sensory Perception
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[main]
Author(s)
M.D. Plumbley & S.A. Abdallah
Abstract
Chapter 7
Information theory and sensory perception
M.D. Plumbley & S.A. Abdallah
Department of Electronic Engineering, Queen Mary University of London,
London, UK.
Abstract
In this chapter, we explore Shannon’s information theory and what it may tell us about the
biological processes of sensory perception. We begin by discussing some historical theories of
sensory perception, including concepts of objects and invariances as well as principles from Gestalt
psychology.We consider the ecological principle that perception should be useful for an organism,
and introduce information theory as a possible way to measure this usefulness. After introducing
some of the key concepts from information theory, such as entropy, information, redundancy and
factorial coding, we draw parallels between communication in engineering systems and sensory
perception. We discuss Attneave’s early proposal that perception should create an economical
description of sensory inputs, as measured by information theory, and Barlow’s suggestion of
lateral inhibition as a possible mechanism to achieve this. We discuss the important role played
by noise in an information processing system, and its importance when determining how to
optimise the communication of information. This leads to the concept of information-optimal
filters which change their characteristics at different signal-to-noise levels, a feature exhibited
by fly and human visual systems. For information processed across topographic maps, optimal
information processing leads to a principle of uniform information density, whereby a larger area
in the cortex allows higher information density, and hence higher accuracy or sensitivity, at the
corresponding sensors.We also discuss some recent investigations of information theory applied
to spiking neural systems, and the concept of economy of impulses. Finally, we discuss some
related concepts such as structure in a perceptual stimulus and implications for Gibson’s ideas
about perceptual systems, and we speculate about the possible importance of attention and active
perception for efficient information processing in a sensory system.
1 Introduction
The problem of sensory perception has been of interest to philosophers and psychologists for
hundreds of years. During the last 50 years or so, since the introduction of Shannon’s information
theory [1], the parallel between perception and communication has been explored by many
Keywords
