> What Determine's a Neuron's Tuning?

The
Efficient Coding of Sensory Information

Xavier.Rampino@mailhec.net
4 January 2011
Summary

1. Introduction
2. The model
3. Results
4. Conclusion
5. Bibliography

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1. Introduction

The context :

Problem of finding an efficient coding

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1. Introduction

What makes a coding efficient ?

 Preserves the underlying sound features

 Lowest size possible for a given quality

 Easy to encode and decode

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1. Introduction

Our problematic here :

• Time-Relative
Spikes in a
population

Given an

• Input Waveform
=
• Reconstructed
Waveform

• With low
differences with
the original
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1. Introduction

What was done until then :

Reverse Correlation (RevCor) :

• Given an input
waveform

• We insert different
white noises

• We use filters to
find most probable
spikes

• Then we use
functions to
reconstruct a
waveform
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1. Introduction

What was done until then :

Reverse Correlation (RevCor) :

• Given an input
waveform

• We insert different
white noises

• We use filters to
find most probable
spikes

• Then we use
functions to
reconstruct a
waveform
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1. Introduction

The originality of this model:

 Theoretical Code (« Black box » model) vs

physiological revcor filters

 Spikes are chosen to maximize efficiency of the code

(non-redudancy)

 The algorithm is trained with specific datasets

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Summary

1. Introduction
2. The model
3. Results
4. Conclusion
5. Bibliography

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2. The model

What do we need for encoding accoustic signal :

 Suppressing useless information or noise

 Efficient for a wide range of signals (both transient

and harmonic)

 Time-relative

 Event-based

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2. The model

An efficient way of coding would be a kernel take :

• The signal x(t) is encoded with a set a kernel functions φ1, … ,

φM that can be positioned arbitrarily and independently in time.
• Assuming that the kernel functions exist at all time points
during the signal t :

(1)

sm(τ) = coefficient at time τ for φM

ε(t) = additive noise

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2. The model

• By using a sparse coefficient signal sm(τ) composed only of

Dirac delta functions (our « event-based » condition), this
equation reduces to :

(2)

sim = coefficient of the ith instance of φm

τim = temporal position of the ith instance of φm
nm = number of instance of φm (can be different for each m)
ε(t) = additive noise

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2. The model

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2. The model

This is just a way to code sounds, we need to find values to these

distincts parematers, in two (linked) steps :

1. Encoding: Determining the optimal temporal positions and

coefficients of kernels functions

2. Learning : Determining the optimal kernel functions

• We repeat these steps until we find a treshold value (here 0,1 for the
coefficient s)
• At the beginning, kernel functions are initialized as standard gammatone
functions

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2. The model

Encoding : Matching-base pursuit

The general idea is to iteratively approximate the input signal with successive
orthogonal projections onto the unit-normed gammatone kernels.
As such, we decompose the signal as

(1)

<x(t), φm> : inner product between signal and φm , equivalent to sm

Rx(t) = Residual signal after approximating x(t) in the direction of φ m

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 2. The model

• The projection with the biggest inner product will minimize the power of Rx(t),
thus yielding the best approximation of x(t) with a single kernel. We want to
record the coefficient for this approximation.
Iteratively, (1) becomes

Rx0 = x(t) on initialization.

• We then substract the best fitting projection, and record it, leaving

orthogonal to

• On each iteration, the power of Rxn is thus bound to disminish. We

put up a treshold to stop the algorithm

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2. The model

Learning: Probabilistic form

We rewrite our main equation as :

(1)
Where s^ is the approximation of the maximum and Φ the gradient
of φ1, … , φM

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2. The model

Learning: Probabilistic form

We then have, for each m :

= Residual error at position tim of kernel φM

We know and x^, so with additional computations we can deduce an

optimal value for φM

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Summary

1. Introduction
2. The model
3. Results
4. Conclusion
5. Bibliography

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3. Results

Because one of the condition was that the model had to be

robust to a large range of accoustic signals, the training dataset
was composed by :

1. Mammalian vocalizations
2. Nature sounds
a) Ambient (rain, wind)
b) Transient (crunching leaves, impact of wood)

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3. Results

Red : Model
Blue : Physiological cat
data

The model predicts

revcor (physiological)
shapes!

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3. Results

Comparison of the model initialized with different datasets :

• Red : Classic model

• Blue : Physiological Cat
Data
• Black : Environmental
Sounds Initialization
• Green : Animal Vocalization
Initialization

With speech initialization, the

model yields similar results as
with the classic dataset.

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3. Results

Comparison of the model initialized with different datasets :

Environmental Sound :
Very brief

Vocalizations :
Longer

Reserved Speech :
Reverse of classic model
(Grey bars = 5 ms)
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3. Results

Efficiency of the code :

• Red : Classic model

• Light Blue : Not learning
Model
• Black : Fourier Transform
• Blue : Daubechies wavelet
transform

• For fidelity under 35db

(treshold beyond which the
difference between the
original signal and the
computed signal is
untellable), the spike-coding
model performs better than
classic Fourier or wavelet
transforms.
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Summary

1. Introduction
2. The model
3. Results
4. Conclusion
5. Bibliography

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 4. Conclusion

General conclusions :

• This model yields results strikingly similar to those recorded

physiologically in auditory nerves of a cat.

• The kernel functions we obtained with the right initialization

(mixed natural sounds) should be good approximations of what
happens in a neuron « black box ».

• The good results with speech initialization could prove that

evolution had adapted in the direction of speech.

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 4. Conclusion

Limits and extensions :

• Depends heavily on the datasets used (right one?)

• Optimizing this system is NP-Hard

• Doesn’t describe the underlying sound features

• Doesn’t take into account changes in response with signal

intensity

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Summary

1. Introduction
2. The model
3. Results
4. Conclusion
5. Bibliography

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 5. Bibliography

Bibliography :

 Evan Smith, Michael S. Lewicki, Efficient coding of time-relative structure using

spikes, Neural Computation January 2005, Vol. 17, No. 1: 19–45.
 Evan Smith, Michael S. Lewicki, Efficient auditory coding, Nature 439, 978-982
(23 February 2006)
 Dario Ringach, Robert Shapley, Reverse correlation in neurophysiology (2003),
Cognitive Science
 Mallat, S. G. & Zhang, Z. Matching pursuits with time–-frequency dictionaries.
IEEE Trans. Signal Process. 41, 3397–-3415 (1993).

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 Thank you for your attention !

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