Test 2 - Feature Detectors & Sensory Code (3)

what is selective adaptation?

neurons tuned to specific stimuli get tired during prolonged exposure (decrease firing rate + refractory period)

Explain this graph

This is an example of selective adaptation. The increase in contrast threshold is only applying to the singular orientation of 0 degrees. This is due to selective adaptation only affecting that specific simple cortical cell that responds to vertical bars of light getting tired.

what is sensory code?

representation of perceived objects through neural firing

what is specificity firing?

specific neurons responding to specific stimuli

what is the grandmother cell hypothesis (specificity coding)?

An individual neuron corresponds with a specific person, place, or object, OR GRANDMOTHER LOL

what are some issues with specificity coding?

1. Too many different stimuli to assign specific neurons

2. Most neurons respond to a number of different stimuli

what is distributed coding?

pattern of firing across many neuron codes specific objects

What is an issue with distributed coding?

selective adaptation can cause neurons to get tired if there’s too many firing for an individual object or GRANDMOTHER

what is sparse coding?

only a relatively small number of neurons are necessary. can be seen as a midpoint between specificity and distributed coding