TY - GEN
T1 - Neural implementation of hierarchical Bayesian inference by importance sampling
AU - Shi, Lei
AU - Griffiths, Thomas L.
PY - 2009
Y1 - 2009
N2 - The goal of perception is to infer the hidden states in the hierarchical process by which sensory data are generated. Human behavior is consistent with the optimal statistical solution to this problem in many tasks, including cue combination and orientation detection. Understanding the neural mechanisms underlying this behavior is of particular importance, since probabilistic computations are notoriously challenging. Here we propose a simple mechanism for Bayesian inference which involves averaging over a few feature detection neurons which fire at a rate determined by their similarity to a sensory stimulus. This mechanism is based on a Monte Carlo method known as importance sampling, commonly used in computer science and statistics. Moreover, a simple extension to recursive importance sampling can be used to perform hierarchical Bayesian inference. We identify a scheme for implementing importance sampling with spiking neurons, and show that this scheme can account for human behavior in cue combination and the oblique effect.
AB - The goal of perception is to infer the hidden states in the hierarchical process by which sensory data are generated. Human behavior is consistent with the optimal statistical solution to this problem in many tasks, including cue combination and orientation detection. Understanding the neural mechanisms underlying this behavior is of particular importance, since probabilistic computations are notoriously challenging. Here we propose a simple mechanism for Bayesian inference which involves averaging over a few feature detection neurons which fire at a rate determined by their similarity to a sensory stimulus. This mechanism is based on a Monte Carlo method known as importance sampling, commonly used in computer science and statistics. Moreover, a simple extension to recursive importance sampling can be used to perform hierarchical Bayesian inference. We identify a scheme for implementing importance sampling with spiking neurons, and show that this scheme can account for human behavior in cue combination and the oblique effect.
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M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84858731044
SN - 9781615679119
T3 - Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 22 - Proceedings of the 2009 Conference
SP - 1669
EP - 1677
BT - Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 22 - Proceedings of the 2009 Conference
PB - Neural Information Processing Systems
T2 - 23rd Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems, NIPS 2009
Y2 - 7 December 2009 through 10 December 2009
ER -