To appear in: The New Cognitive Neurosciences, 3rd edition Editor: M. Gazzaniga. MIT Press, 2004. Characterization of Neural Responses with Stochastic Stimuli

A fundamental goal of sensory systems neuroscience is the characterization of the functional relationship between environmental stimuli and neural response. The purpose of such a characterization is to elucidate the computation being performed by the system. Qualitatively, this notion is exemplified by the concept of the “receptive field”, a quasi-linear description of a neuron’s response properties that has dominated sensory neuroscience for the past 50 years. Receptive field properties are typically determined by measuring responses to a highly restricted set of stimuli, parameterized by one or a few parameters. These stimuli are typically chosen both because they are known to produce strong responses, and because they are easy to generate using available technology.

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