A Stochastic Approach to the Detection of Receptive Fields in the Visual System

A statistical approach is developed for the detection of receptive fields of cells in the visual system. A spatiotemporal random pattern of light, composed of successive frame patterns, is used as a stimulation signal. A frame consists of N2 square elements: N rows and N columns. The brightness of each element is independent to one another and takes "light" or "dark" state. Shaped random patterns are defined in the spatiotemporal random pattern, and a list indicating the presence and absence of a defined feature pattern is made from the spatiotemporal random pattern. The receptive field is described in terms of the spatial response function based on a cross correlation between cell's reponse and feature signal (feature list). Consideration is given to feature parameters affecting on results.