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SUMMARY:Does the variability of sensory neurons constrain the accuracy of 
 perception?
DTSTART:20121122T133000
DTSTAMP:20260916T055658Z
UID:f9a1116074de20bc9222d7e4160e4c69f18e9d55d20dffefc5d13ad7
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Alfonso RENART\, Champalimaud Foundation\nIn perceptual decisi
 on making tasks\, animals have to make choices about the nature of a senso
 ry stimulus close to their psychophysical threshold. A body of work during
  the last two decades has shown that responses of sensory neurons during t
 hese tasks is variable across different presentations of the same stimulus
 \, and that this variability is weakly\, but significantly correlated with
  perceptual judgements about the stimulus. These correlations (referred to
  as choice probability -- CP) have been interpreted as representing a caus
 al influence of sensory neurons on choice\, which implies that variability
  in the activity of sensory neurons sets an upper bound on the accuracy of
  perception. I will review recent evidence which calls into question this 
 interpretation\, describe a simple model of perceptual decision making whi
 ch suggests two alternative origins for measured CPs\, and present results
  of a re-analysis of the data from classic perceptual decision making expe
 riments in primates which supports this new interpretation. Overall\, our 
 work suggests that the accuracy of perception is less constrained by noisy
  sensory processing than previously thought.
LOCATION:SG 0213 http://plan.epfl.ch/?room=sg0213
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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