Publications | Empirical Inference - Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems

51 results (View BibTeX file of all listed publications)

2008

Variational Bayesian Model Selection in Linear Gaussian State-Space based Models

International Workshop on Flexible Modelling: Smoothing and Robustness (FMSR 2008), 2008, pages: 1, November 2008 (poster)

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2008

Chiappa, S. Variational Bayesian Model Selection in Linear Gaussian State-Space based Models International Workshop on Flexible Modelling: Smoothing and Robustness (FMSR 2008), 2008, pages: 1, November 2008 (poster)

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Towards the neural basis of the flash-lag effect

Ecker, A., Berens, P., Hoenselaar, A., Subramaniyan, M., Tolias, A., Bethge, M.

International Workshop on Aspects of Adaptive Cortex Dynamics, 2008, pages: 1, September 2008 (poster)

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Ecker, A., Berens, P., Hoenselaar, A., Subramaniyan, M., Tolias, A., Bethge, M. Towards the neural basis of the flash-lag effect International Workshop on Aspects of Adaptive Cortex Dynamics, 2008, pages: 1, September 2008 (poster)

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Reinforcement Learning for Motor Primitives

Kober, J.

Biologische Kybernetik, University of Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany, August 2008 (diplomathesis)

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Kober, J. Reinforcement Learning for Motor Primitives Biologische Kybernetik, University of Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany, August 2008 (diplomathesis)

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Asymmetries of Time Series under Inverting their Direction

Peters, J.

Biologische Kybernetik, University of Heidelberg, August 2008 (diplomathesis)

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Peters, J. Asymmetries of Time Series under Inverting their Direction Biologische Kybernetik, University of Heidelberg, August 2008 (diplomathesis)

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Learning an Interest Operator from Human Eye Movements

Kienzle, W.

Biologische Kybernetik, Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany, July 2008 (phdthesis)

[BibTex]

Kienzle, W. Learning an Interest Operator from Human Eye Movements Biologische Kybernetik, Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany, July 2008 (phdthesis)

[BibTex]

Policy Learning: A Unified Perspective With Applications In Robotics

Peters, J., Kober, J., Nguyen-Tuong, D.

8th European Workshop on Reinforcement Learning for Robotics (EWRL 2008), 8, pages: 10, July 2008 (poster)

Abstract

Policy Learning approaches are among the best suited methods for high-dimensional, continuous control systems such as anthropomorphic robot arms and humanoid robots. In this paper, we show two contributions: firstly, we show a unified perspective which allows us to derive several policy learning al- gorithms from a common point of view, i.e, policy gradient algorithms, natural- gradient algorithms and EM-like policy learning. Secondly, we present several applications to both robot motor primitive learning as well as to robot control in task space. Results both from simulation and several different real robots are shown.

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Peters, J., Kober, J., Nguyen-Tuong, D. Policy Learning: A Unified Perspective With Applications In Robotics 8th European Workshop on Reinforcement Learning for Robotics (EWRL 2008), 8, pages: 10, July 2008 (poster)

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Reinforcement Learning of Perceptual Coupling for Motor Primitives

Kober, J., Peters, J.

8th European Workshop on Reinforcement Learning for Robotics (EWRL 2008), 8, pages: 16, July 2008 (poster)

Abstract

Reinforcement learning is a natural choice for the learning of complex motor tasks by reward-related self-improvement. As the space of movements is high-dimensional and continuous, a policy parametrization is needed which can be used in this context. Traditional motor primitive approaches deal largely with open-loop policies which can only deal with small perturbations. In this paper, we present a new type of motor primitive policies which serve as closed-loop policies together with an appropriate learning algorithm. Our new motor primitives are an augmented version version of the dynamic systems motor primitives that incorporates perceptual coupling to external variables. We show that these motor primitives can perform complex tasks such a Ball-in-a-Cup or Kendama task even with large variances in the initial conditions where a human would hardly be able to learn this task. We initialize the open-loop policies by imitation learning and the perceptual coupling with a handcrafted solution. We first improve the open-loop policies and subsequently the perceptual coupling using a novel reinforcement learning method which is particularly well-suited for motor primitives.

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Kober, J., Peters, J. Reinforcement Learning of Perceptual Coupling for Motor Primitives 8th European Workshop on Reinforcement Learning for Robotics (EWRL 2008), 8, pages: 16, July 2008 (poster)

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Flexible Models for Population Spike Trains

Bethge, M., Macke, J., Berens, P., Ecker, A., Tolias, A.

AREADNE 2008: Research in Encoding and Decoding of Neural Ensembles, 2, pages: 52, June 2008 (poster)

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Bethge, M., Macke, J., Berens, P., Ecker, A., Tolias, A. Flexible Models for Population Spike Trains AREADNE 2008: Research in Encoding and Decoding of Neural Ensembles, 2, pages: 52, June 2008 (poster)

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Pairwise Correlations and Multineuronal Firing Patterns in the Primary Visual Cortex of the Awake, Behaving Macaque

Berens, P., Ecker, A., Subramaniyan, M., Macke, J., Hauck, P., Bethge, M., Tolias, A.

AREADNE 2008: Research in Encoding and Decoding of Neural Ensembles, 2, pages: 48, June 2008 (poster)

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Berens, P., Ecker, A., Subramaniyan, M., Macke, J., Hauck, P., Bethge, M., Tolias, A. Pairwise Correlations and Multineuronal Firing Patterns in the Primary Visual Cortex of the Awake, Behaving Macaque AREADNE 2008: Research in Encoding and Decoding of Neural Ensembles, 2, pages: 48, June 2008 (poster)

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Visual saliency re-visited: Center-surround patterns emerge as optimal predictors for human fixation targets

Wichmann, F., Kienzle, W., Schölkopf, B., Franz, M.

Journal of Vision, 8(6):635, 8th Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society (VSS), June 2008 (poster)

Abstract

Humans perceives the world by directing the center of gaze from one location to another via rapid eye movements, called saccades. In the period between saccades the direction of gaze is held fixed for a few hundred milliseconds (fixations). It is primarily during fixations that information enters the visual system. Remarkably, however, after only a few fixations we perceive a coherent, high-resolution scene despite the visual acuity of the eye quickly decreasing away from the center of gaze: This suggests an effective strategy for selecting saccade targets. Top-down effects, such as the observer's task, thoughts, or intentions have an effect on saccadic selection. Equally well known is that bottom-up effects-local image structure-influence saccade targeting regardless of top-down effects. However, the question of what the most salient visual features are is still under debate. Here we model the relationship between spatial intensity patterns in natural images and the response of the saccadic system using tools from machine learning. This allows us to identify the most salient image patterns that guide the bottom-up component of the saccadic selection system, which we refer to as perceptive fields. We show that center-surround patterns emerge as the optimal solution to the problem of predicting saccade targets. Using a novel nonlinear system identification technique we reduce our learned classifier to a one-layer feed-forward network which is surprisingly simple compared to previously suggested models assuming more complex computations such as multi-scale processing, oriented filters and lateral inhibition. Nevertheless, our model is equally predictive and generalizes better to novel image sets. Furthermore, our findings are consistent with neurophysiological hardware in the superior colliculus. Bottom-up visual saliency may thus not be computed cortically as has been thought previously.

Web DOI [BibTex]

Wichmann, F., Kienzle, W., Schölkopf, B., Franz, M. Visual saliency re-visited: Center-surround patterns emerge as optimal predictors for human fixation targets Journal of Vision, 8(6):635, 8th Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society (VSS), June 2008 (poster)

Web DOI [BibTex]

Analysis of Pattern Recognition Methods in Classifying Bold Signals in Monkeys at 7-Tesla

Ku, S., Gretton, A., Macke, J., Tolias, A., Logothetis, N.

AREADNE 2008: Research in Encoding and Decoding of Neural Ensembles, 2, pages: 67, June 2008 (poster)

Abstract

Pattern recognition methods have shown that fMRI data can reveal significant information about brain activity. For example, in the debate of how object-categories are represented in the brain, multivariate analysis has been used to provide evidence of distributed encoding schemes. Many follow-up studies have employed different methods to analyze human fMRI data with varying degrees of success. In this study we compare four popular pattern recognition methods: correlation analysis, support-vector machines (SVM), linear discriminant analysis and Gaussian naïve Bayes (GNB), using data collected at high field (7T) with higher resolution than usual fMRI studies. We investigate prediction performance on single trials and for averages across varying numbers of stimulus presentations. The performance of the various algorithms depends on the nature of the brain activity being categorized: for several tasks, many of the methods work well, whereas for others, no methods perform above chance level. An important factor in overall classification performance is careful preprocessing of the data, including dimensionality reduction, voxel selection, and outlier elimination.

[BibTex]

Ku, S., Gretton, A., Macke, J., Tolias, A., Logothetis, N. Analysis of Pattern Recognition Methods in Classifying Bold Signals in Monkeys at 7-Tesla AREADNE 2008: Research in Encoding and Decoding of Neural Ensembles, 2, pages: 67, June 2008 (poster)

[BibTex]

Causal inference from statistical data

Sun, X.

Biologische Kybernetik, Technische Hochschule Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, Germany, April 2008 (phdthesis)

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Sun, X. Causal inference from statistical data Biologische Kybernetik, Technische Hochschule Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, Germany, April 2008 (phdthesis)

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Pairwise Correlations and Multineuronal Firing Patterns in Primary Visual Cortex

Berens, P.

Biologische Kybernetik, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany, April 2008 (diplomathesis)

[BibTex]

Berens, P. Pairwise Correlations and Multineuronal Firing Patterns in Primary Visual Cortex Biologische Kybernetik, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany, April 2008 (diplomathesis)

[BibTex]

The role of stimulus correlations for population decoding in the retina

Schwartz, G., Macke, J., Berry, M.

Computational and Systems Neuroscience 2008 (COSYNE 2008), 5, pages: 172, March 2008 (poster)

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Schwartz, G., Macke, J., Berry, M. The role of stimulus correlations for population decoding in the retina Computational and Systems Neuroscience 2008 (COSYNE 2008), 5, pages: 172, March 2008 (poster)

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Development and Application of a Python Scripting Framework for BCI2000

Schreiner, T.

Biologische Kybernetik, Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany, January 2008 (diplomathesis)

[BibTex]

Schreiner, T. Development and Application of a Python Scripting Framework for BCI2000 Biologische Kybernetik, Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany, January 2008 (diplomathesis)

[BibTex]

Efficient and Invariant Regularisation with Application to Computer Graphics

Walder, CJ.

Biologische Kybernetik, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia, January 2008 (phdthesis)

Abstract

This thesis develops the theory and practise of reproducing kernel methods. Many functional inverse problems which arise in, for example, machine learning and computer graphics, have been treated with practical success using methods based on a reproducing kernel Hilbert space perspective. This perspective is often theoretically convenient, in that many functional analysis problems reduce to linear algebra problems in these spaces. Somewhat more complex is the case of conditionally positive definite kernels, and we provide an introduction to both cases, deriving in a particularly elementary manner some key results for the conditionally positive definite case. A common complaint of the practitioner is the long running time of these kernel based algorithms. We provide novel ways of alleviating these problems by essentially using a non-standard function basis which yields computational advantages. That said, by doing so we must also forego the aforementioned theoretical conveniences, and hence need some additional analysis which we provide in order to make the approach practicable. We demonstrate that the method leads to state of the art performance on the problem of surface reconstruction from points. We also provide some analysis of kernels invariant to transformations such as translation and dilation, and show that this indicates the value of learning algorithms which use conditionally positive definite kernels. Correspondingly, we provide a few approaches for making such algorithms practicable. We do this either by modifying the kernel, or directly solving problems with conditionally positive definite kernels, which had previously only been solved with positive definite kernels. We demonstrate the advantage of this approach, in particular by attaining state of the art classification performance with only one free parameter.

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Walder, CJ. Efficient and Invariant Regularisation with Application to Computer Graphics Biologische Kybernetik, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia, January 2008 (phdthesis)

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2007

MR-Based PET Attenuation Correction: Method and Validation

Hofmann, M., Steinke, F., Scheel, V., Charpiat, G., Brady, M., Schölkopf, B., Pichler, B.

2007 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference (NSS-MIC 2007), 2007(M16-6):1-2, November 2007 (poster)

Abstract

PET/MR combines the high soft tissue contrast of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and the functional information of Positron Emission Tomography (PET). For quantitative PET information, correction of tissue photon attenuation is mandatory. Usually in conventional PET, the attenuation map is obtained from a transmission scan, which uses a rotating source, or from the CT scan in case of combined PET/CT. In the case of a PET/MR scanner, there is insufficient space for the rotating source and ideally one would want to calculate the attenuation map from the MR image instead. Since MR images provide information about proton density of the different tissue types, it is not trivial to use this data for PET attenuation correction. We present a method for predicting the PET attenuation map from a given the MR image, using a combination of atlas-registration and recognition of local patterns. Using "leave one out cross validation" we show on a database of 16 MR-CT image pairs that our method reliably allows estimating the CT image from the MR image. Subsequently, as in PET/CT, the PET attenuation map can be predicted from the CT image. On an additional dataset of MR/CT/PET triplets we quantitatively validate that our approach allows PET quantification with an error that is smaller than what would be clinically significant. We demonstrate our approach on T1-weighted human brain scans. However, the presented methods are more general and current research focuses on applying the established methods to human whole body PET/MRI applications.

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2007

Hofmann, M., Steinke, F., Scheel, V., Charpiat, G., Brady, M., Schölkopf, B., Pichler, B. MR-Based PET Attenuation Correction: Method and Validation 2007 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference (NSS-MIC 2007), 2007(M16-6):1-2, November 2007 (poster)

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Estimating receptive fields without spike-triggering

Macke, J., Zeck, G., Bethge, M.

37th annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (Neuroscience 2007), 37(768.1):1, November 2007 (poster)

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Macke, J., Zeck, G., Bethge, M. Estimating receptive fields without spike-triggering 37th annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (Neuroscience 2007), 37(768.1):1, November 2007 (poster)

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Evaluation of Deformable Registration Methods for MR-CT Atlas Alignment

Scheel, V., Hofmann, M., Rehfeld, N., Judenhofer, M., Claussen, C., Pichler, B.

2007 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference (NSS-MIC 2007), 2007(M13-121):1, November 2007 (poster)

Abstract

Deformable registration methods are essential for multimodality imaging. Many different methods exist but due to the complexity of the deformed images a direct comparison of the methods is difficult. One particular application that requires high accuracy registration of MR-CT images is atlas-based attenuation correction for PET/MR. We compare four deformable registration algorithms for 3D image data included in the Open Source "National Library of Medicine Insight Segmentation and Registration Toolkit" (ITK). An interactive landmark based registration using MiraView (Siemens) has been used as gold standard. The automatic algorithms provided by ITK are based on the metrics Mattes mutual information as well as on normalized mutual information. The transformations are calculated by interpolating over a uniform B-Spline grid laying over the image to be warped. The algorithms were tested on head images from 10 subjects. We implemented a measure which segments head interior bone and air based on the CT images and l ow intensity classes of corresponding MRI images. The segmentation of bone is performed by individually calculating the lowest Hounsfield unit threshold for each CT image. The compromise is made by quantifying the number of overlapping voxels of the remaining structures. We show that the algorithms provided by ITK achieve similar or better accuracy than the time-consuming interactive landmark based registration. Thus, ITK provides an ideal platform to generate accurately fused datasets from different modalities, required for example for building training datasets for Atlas-based attenuation correction.

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Scheel, V., Hofmann, M., Rehfeld, N., Judenhofer, M., Claussen, C., Pichler, B. Evaluation of Deformable Registration Methods for MR-CT Atlas Alignment 2007 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference (NSS-MIC 2007), 2007(M13-121):1, November 2007 (poster)

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Some Theoretical Aspects of Human Categorization Behavior: Similarity and Generalization

Jäkel, F.

Biologische Kybernetik, Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany, November 2007, passed with "ausgezeichnet", summa cum laude, published online (phdthesis)

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Jäkel, F. Some Theoretical Aspects of Human Categorization Behavior: Similarity and Generalization Biologische Kybernetik, Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany, November 2007, passed with "ausgezeichnet", summa cum laude, published online (phdthesis)

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Statistical Learning Theory Approaches to Clustering

Jegelka, S.

Biologische Kybernetik, Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany, November 2007 (diplomathesis)

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Jegelka, S. Statistical Learning Theory Approaches to Clustering Biologische Kybernetik, Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany, November 2007 (diplomathesis)

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A time/frequency decomposition of information transmission by LFPs and spikes in the primary visual cortex

Belitski, A., Gretton, A., Magri, C., Murayama, Y., Montemurro, M., Logothetis, N., Panzeri, S.

37th Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (Neuroscience 2007), 37, pages: 1, November 2007 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

Belitski, A., Gretton, A., Magri, C., Murayama, Y., Montemurro, M., Logothetis, N., Panzeri, S. A time/frequency decomposition of information transmission by LFPs and spikes in the primary visual cortex 37th Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (Neuroscience 2007), 37, pages: 1, November 2007 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

Mining expression-dependent modules in the human interaction network

Georgii, E., Dietmann, S., Uno, T., Pagel, P., Tsuda, K.

BMC Bioinformatics, 8(Suppl. 8):S4, November 2007 (poster)

PDF DOI [BibTex]

Georgii, E., Dietmann, S., Uno, T., Pagel, P., Tsuda, K. Mining expression-dependent modules in the human interaction network BMC Bioinformatics, 8(Suppl. 8):S4, November 2007 (poster)

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A Hilbert Space Embedding for Distributions

Smola, A., Gretton, A., Song, L., Schölkopf, B.

Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Discovery Science (DS 2007), 10, pages: 40-41, October 2007 (poster)

Abstract

While kernel methods are the basis of many popular techniques in supervised learning, they are less commonly used in testing, estimation, and analysis of probability distributions, where information theoretic approaches rule the roost. However it becomes difficult to estimate mutual information or entropy if the data are high dimensional.

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Smola, A., Gretton, A., Song, L., Schölkopf, B. A Hilbert Space Embedding for Distributions Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Discovery Science (DS 2007), 10, pages: 40-41, October 2007 (poster)

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Studying the effects of noise correlations on population coding using a sampling method

Ecker, A., Berens, P., Bethge, M., Logothetis, N., Tolias, A.

Neural Coding, Computation and Dynamics (NCCD 07), 1, pages: 21, September 2007 (poster)

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Ecker, A., Berens, P., Bethge, M., Logothetis, N., Tolias, A. Studying the effects of noise correlations on population coding using a sampling method Neural Coding, Computation and Dynamics (NCCD 07), 1, pages: 21, September 2007 (poster)

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Near-Maximum Entropy Models for Binary Neural Representations of Natural Images

Berens, P., Bethge, M.

Neural Coding, Computation and Dynamics (NCCD 07), 1, pages: 19, September 2007 (poster)

Abstract

Maximum entropy analysis of binary variables provides an elegant way for studying the role of pairwise correlations in neural populations. Unfortunately, these approaches suffer from their poor scalability to high dimensions. In sensory coding, however, high-dimensional data is ubiquitous. Here, we introduce a new approach using a near-maximum entropy model, that makes this type of analysis feasible for very high-dimensional data---the model parameters can be derived in closed form and sampling is easy. We demonstrate its usefulness by studying a simple neural representation model of natural images. For the first time, we are able to directly compare predictions from a pairwise maximum entropy model not only in small groups of neurons, but also in larger populations of more than thousand units. Our results indicate that in such larger networks interactions exist that are not predicted by pairwise correlations, despite the fact that pairwise correlations explain the lower-dimensional marginal statistics extrem ely well up to the limit of dimensionality where estimation of the full joint distribution is feasible.

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Berens, P., Bethge, M. Near-Maximum Entropy Models for Binary Neural Representations of Natural Images Neural Coding, Computation and Dynamics (NCCD 07), 1, pages: 19, September 2007 (poster)

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Error Correcting Codes for the P300 Visual Speller

Biessmann, F.

Biologische Kybernetik, Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany, July 2007 (diplomathesis)

Abstract

The aim of brain-computer interface (BCI) research is to establish a communication system based on intentional modulation of brain activity. This is accomplished by classifying patterns of brain ac- tivity, volitionally induced by the user. The BCI presented in this study is based on a classical paradigm as proposed by (Farwell and Donchin, 1988), the P300 visual speller. Recording electroencephalo- grams (EEG) from the scalp while presenting letters successively to the user, the speller can infer from the brain signal which letter the user was focussing on. Since EEG recordings are noisy, usually many repetitions are needed to detect the correct letter. The focus of this study was to improve the accuracy of the visual speller applying some basic principles from information theory: Stimulus sequences of the speller have been modi&amp;amp;#64257;ed into error-correcting codes. Additionally a language model was incorporated into the probabilistic letter de- coder. Classi&amp;amp;#64257;cation of single EEG epochs was less accurate using error correcting codes. However, the novel code could compensate for that such that overall, letter accuracies were as high as or even higher than for classical stimulus codes. In particular at high noise levels, error-correcting decoding achieved higher letter accuracies.

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Biessmann, F. Error Correcting Codes for the P300 Visual Speller Biologische Kybernetik, Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany, July 2007 (diplomathesis)

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Learning the Influence of Spatio-Temporal Variations in Local Image Structure on Visual Saliency

Kienzle, W., Wichmann, F., Schölkopf, B., Franz, M.

10th T{\"u}binger Wahrnehmungskonferenz (TWK 2007), 10, pages: 1, July 2007 (poster)

Abstract

Computational models for bottom-up visual attention traditionally consist of a bank of Gabor-like or Difference-of-Gaussians filters and a nonlinear combination scheme which combines the filter responses into a real-valued saliency measure [1]. Recently it was shown that a standard machine learning algorithm can be used to derive a saliency model from human eye movement data with a very small number of additional assumptions. The learned model is much simpler than previous models, but nevertheless has state-of-the-art prediction performance [2]. A central result from this study is that DoG-like center-surround filters emerge as the unique solution to optimizing the predictivity of the model. Here we extend the learning method to the temporal domain. While the previous model [2] predicts visual saliency based on local pixel intensities in a static image, our model also takes into account temporal intensity variations. We find that the learned model responds strongly to temporal intensity changes ocurring 200-250ms before a saccade is initiated. This delay coincides with the typical saccadic latencies, indicating that the learning algorithm has extracted a meaningful statistic from the training data. In addition, we show that the model correctly predicts a significant proportion of human eye movements on previously unseen test data.

Web [BibTex]

Kienzle, W., Wichmann, F., Schölkopf, B., Franz, M. Learning the Influence of Spatio-Temporal Variations in Local Image Structure on Visual Saliency 10th T{\"u}binger Wahrnehmungskonferenz (TWK 2007), 10, pages: 1, July 2007 (poster)

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Nonparametric Bayesian Discrete Latent Variable Models for Unsupervised Learning

Görür, D.

Biologische Kybernetik, Technische Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany, April 2007, published online (phdthesis)

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Görür, D. Nonparametric Bayesian Discrete Latent Variable Models for Unsupervised Learning Biologische Kybernetik, Technische Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany, April 2007, published online (phdthesis)

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Better Codes for the P300 Visual Speller

Biessmann, F., Hill, N., Farquhar, J., Schölkopf, B.

G{\"o}ttingen Meeting of the German Neuroscience Society, 7, pages: 123, March 2007 (poster)

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Biessmann, F., Hill, N., Farquhar, J., Schölkopf, B. Better Codes for the P300 Visual Speller G{\"o}ttingen Meeting of the German Neuroscience Society, 7, pages: 123, March 2007 (poster)

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Do We Know What the Early Visual System Computes?

Bethge, M., Kayser, C.

31st G{\"o}ttingen Neurobiology Conference, 31, pages: 352, March 2007 (poster)

Abstract

Decades of research provided much data and insights into the mechanisms of the early visual system. Currently, however, there is great controversy on whether these findings can provide us with a thorough functional understanding of what the early visual system does, or formulated differently, of what it computes. At the Society for Neuroscience meeting 2005 in Washington, a symposium was held on the question "Do we know that the early visual system does", which was accompanied by a widely regarded publication in the Journal of Neuroscience. Yet, that discussion was rather specialized as it predominantly addressed the question of how well neural responses in retina, LGN, and cortex can be predicted from noise stimuli, but did not emphasize the question of whether we understand what the function of these early visual areas is. Here we will concentrate on this neuro-computational aspect of vision. Experts from neurobiology, psychophysics and computational neuroscience will present studies which approach this question from different viewpoints and promote a critical discussion of whether we actually understand what early areas contribute to the processing and perception of visual information.

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Bethge, M., Kayser, C. Do We Know What the Early Visual System Computes? 31st G{\"o}ttingen Neurobiology Conference, 31, pages: 352, March 2007 (poster)

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Implicit Wiener Series for Estimating Nonlinear Receptive Fields

Franz, MO., Macke, JH., Saleem, A., Schultz, SR.

31st G{\"o}ttingen Neurobiology Conference, 31, pages: 1199, March 2007 (poster)

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Franz, MO., Macke, JH., Saleem, A., Schultz, SR. Implicit Wiener Series for Estimating Nonlinear Receptive Fields 31st G{\"o}ttingen Neurobiology Conference, 31, pages: 1199, March 2007 (poster)

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3D Reconstruction of Neural Circuits from Serial EM Images

Maack, N., Kapfer, C., Macke, J., Schölkopf, B., Denk, W., Borst, A.

31st G{\"o}ttingen Neurobiology Conference, 31, pages: 1195, March 2007 (poster)

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Maack, N., Kapfer, C., Macke, J., Schölkopf, B., Denk, W., Borst, A. 3D Reconstruction of Neural Circuits from Serial EM Images 31st G{\"o}ttingen Neurobiology Conference, 31, pages: 1195, March 2007 (poster)

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Identifying temporal population codes in the retina using canonical correlation analysis

Bethge, M., Macke, J., Gerwinn, S., Zeck, G.

31st G{\"o}ttingen Neurobiology Conference, 31, pages: 359, March 2007 (poster)

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Bethge, M., Macke, J., Gerwinn, S., Zeck, G. Identifying temporal population codes in the retina using canonical correlation analysis 31st G{\"o}ttingen Neurobiology Conference, 31, pages: 359, March 2007 (poster)

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Bayesian Neural System identification: error bars, receptive fields and neural couplings

Gerwinn, S., Seeger, M., Zeck, G., Bethge, M.

31st G{\"o}ttingen Neurobiology Conference, 31, pages: 360, March 2007 (poster)

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Gerwinn, S., Seeger, M., Zeck, G., Bethge, M. Bayesian Neural System identification: error bars, receptive fields and neural couplings 31st G{\"o}ttingen Neurobiology Conference, 31, pages: 360, March 2007 (poster)

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Applications of Kernel Machines to Structured Data

Eichhorn, J.

Biologische Kybernetik, Technische Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany, March 2007, passed with "sehr gut", published online (phdthesis)

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Eichhorn, J. Applications of Kernel Machines to Structured Data Biologische Kybernetik, Technische Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany, March 2007, passed with "sehr gut", published online (phdthesis)

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A priori Knowledge from Non-Examples

Sinz, FH.

Biologische Kybernetik, Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany, March 2007 (diplomathesis)

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Sinz, FH. A priori Knowledge from Non-Examples Biologische Kybernetik, Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany, March 2007 (diplomathesis)

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About the Triangle Inequality in Perceptual Spaces

Jäkel, F., Schölkopf, B., Wichmann, F.

Proceedings of the Computational and Systems Neuroscience Meeting 2007 (COSYNE), 4, pages: 308, February 2007 (poster)

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Jäkel, F., Schölkopf, B., Wichmann, F. About the Triangle Inequality in Perceptual Spaces Proceedings of the Computational and Systems Neuroscience Meeting 2007 (COSYNE), 4, pages: 308, February 2007 (poster)

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Center-surround filters emerge from optimizing predictivity in a free-viewing task

Kienzle, W., Wichmann, F., Schölkopf, B., Franz, M.

Proceedings of the Computational and Systems Neuroscience Meeting 2007 (COSYNE), 4, pages: 207, February 2007 (poster)

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Kienzle, W., Wichmann, F., Schölkopf, B., Franz, M. Center-surround filters emerge from optimizing predictivity in a free-viewing task Proceedings of the Computational and Systems Neuroscience Meeting 2007 (COSYNE), 4, pages: 207, February 2007 (poster)

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Nonlinear Receptive Field Analysis: Making Kernel Methods Interpretable

Kienzle, W., Macke, J., Wichmann, F., Schölkopf, B., Franz, M.

Computational and Systems Neuroscience Meeting 2007 (COSYNE 2007), 4, pages: 16, February 2007 (poster)

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Kienzle, W., Macke, J., Wichmann, F., Schölkopf, B., Franz, M. Nonlinear Receptive Field Analysis: Making Kernel Methods Interpretable Computational and Systems Neuroscience Meeting 2007 (COSYNE 2007), 4, pages: 16, February 2007 (poster)

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Estimating Population Receptive Fields in Space and Time

Macke, J., Zeck, G., Bethge, M.

Computational and Systems Neuroscience Meeting 2007 (COSYNE 2007), 4, pages: 44, February 2007 (poster)

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Macke, J., Zeck, G., Bethge, M. Estimating Population Receptive Fields in Space and Time Computational and Systems Neuroscience Meeting 2007 (COSYNE 2007), 4, pages: 44, February 2007 (poster)

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Machine Learning for Mass Production and Industrial Engineering

Pfingsten, T.

Biologische Kybernetik, Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany, February 2007 (phdthesis)

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Pfingsten, T. Machine Learning for Mass Production and Industrial Engineering Biologische Kybernetik, Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany, February 2007 (phdthesis)

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Development of a Brain-Computer Interface Approach Based on Covert Attention to Tactile Stimuli

Raths, C.

University of Tübingen, Germany, University of Tübingen, Germany, January 2007 (diplomathesis)

[BibTex]

Raths, C. Development of a Brain-Computer Interface Approach Based on Covert Attention to Tactile Stimuli University of Tübingen, Germany, University of Tübingen, Germany, January 2007 (diplomathesis)

[BibTex]

A Machine Learning Approach for Estimating the Attenuation Map for a Combined PET/MR Scanner

Hofmann, M.

Biologische Kybernetik, Max-Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, 2007 (diplomathesis)

[BibTex]

Hofmann, M. A Machine Learning Approach for Estimating the Attenuation Map for a Combined PET/MR Scanner Biologische Kybernetik, Max-Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, 2007 (diplomathesis)

[BibTex]

2002

Surface-slant-from-texture discrimination: Effects of slant level and texture type

Rosas, P., Wichmann, F., Wagemans, J.

Journal of Vision, 2(7):300, Second Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society (VSS), November 2002 (poster)

Abstract

The problem of surface-slant-from-texture was studied psychophysically by measuring the performances of five human subjects in a slant-discrimination task with a number of different types of textures: uniform lattices, randomly displaced lattices, polka dots, Voronoi tessellations, orthogonal sinusoidal plaid patterns, fractal or 1/f noise, “coherent” noise and a “diffusion-based” texture (leopard skin-like). The results show: (1) Improving performance with larger slants for all textures. (2) A “non-symmetrical” performance around a particular slant characterized by a psychometric function that is steeper in the direction of the more slanted orientation. (3) For sufficiently large slants (66 deg) there are no major differences in performance between any of the different textures. (4) For slants at 26, 37 and 53 degrees, however, there are marked differences between the different textures. (5) The observed differences in performance across textures for slants up to 53 degrees are systematic within subjects, and nearly so across them. This allows a rank-order of textures to be formed according to their “helpfulness” — that is, how easy the discrimination task is when a particular texture is mapped on the surface. Polka dots tended to allow the best slant discrimination performance, noise patterns the worst up to the large slant of 66 degrees at which performance was almost independent of the particular texture chosen. Finally, our large number of 2AFC trials (approximately 2800 trials per texture across subjects) and associated tight confidence intervals may enable us to find out about which statistical properties of the textures could be responsible for surface-slant-from-texture estimation, with the ultimate goal of being able to predict observer performance for any arbitrary texture.

Web DOI [BibTex]

2002

Rosas, P., Wichmann, F., Wagemans, J. Surface-slant-from-texture discrimination: Effects of slant level and texture type Journal of Vision, 2(7):300, Second Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society (VSS), November 2002 (poster)

Web DOI [BibTex]

Modelling Contrast Transfer in Spatial Vision

Wichmann, F.

Journal of Vision, 2(10):7, Second Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society (VSS), November 2002 (poster)

Abstract

Much of our information about spatial vision comes from detection experiments involving low-contrast stimuli. Contrast discrimination experiments provide one way to explore the visual system's response to stimuli of higher contrast, the results of which allow different models of contrast processing (e.g. energy versus gain-control models) to be critically assessed (Wichmann & Henning, 1999). Studies of detection and discrimination using pulse train stimuli in noise, on the other hand, make predictions about the number, position and properties of noise sources within the processing stream (Henning, Bird & Wichmann, 2002). Here I report modelling results combining data from both sinusoidal and pulse train experiments in and without noise to arrive at a more tightly constrained model of early spatial vision.

Web DOI [BibTex]

Wichmann, F. Modelling Contrast Transfer in Spatial Vision Journal of Vision, 2(10):7, Second Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society (VSS), November 2002 (poster)

Web DOI [BibTex]

Pulse train detection and discrimination in pink noise

Henning, G., Wichmann, F., Bird, C.

Journal of Vision, 2(7):229, Second Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society (VSS), November 2002 (poster)

Abstract

Much of our information about spatial vision comes from detection experiments involving low-contrast stimuli. Contrast discrimination experiments provide one way to explore the visual system's response to stimuli of higher contrast. We explored both detection and contrast discrimination performance with sinusoidal and "pulse-train" (or line) gratings. Both types of grating had a fundamental spatial frequency of 2.09-c/deg but the pulse-train, ideally, contains, in addition to its fundamental component, all the harmonics of the fundamental. Although the 2.09-c/deg pulse-train produced on the display was measured and shown to contain at least 8 harmonics at equal contrast, it was no more detectable than its most detectable component; no benefit from having additional information at the harmonics was measurable. The addition of broadband "pink" noise, designed to equalize the detectability of the components of the pulse train, made it about a factor of four more detectable than any of its components. However, in contrast-discrimination experiments, with an in-phase pedestal or masking grating of the same form and phase as the signal and 15% contrast, the noise did not improve the discrimination performance of the pulse train relative to that of its sinusoidal components. In contrast, a 2.09-c/deg "super train," constructed to have 8 equally detectable harmonics, was a factor of five more detectable than any of its components. We discuss the implications of these observations for models of early vision in particular the implications for possible sources of internal noise.

Web DOI [BibTex]

Henning, G., Wichmann, F., Bird, C. Pulse train detection and discrimination in pink noise Journal of Vision, 2(7):229, Second Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society (VSS), November 2002 (poster)

Web DOI [BibTex]

Phase information in the recognition of natural images

Braun, D., Wichmann, F., Gegenfurtner, K.

Perception, 31(ECVP Abstract Supplement):133, 25th European Conference on Visual Perception, August 2002 (poster)

Abstract

Fourier phase plays an important role in determining global image structure. For example, when the phase spectrum of an image of a flower is swapped with that of a tank, we usually perceive a tank, even though the amplitude spectrum is still that of the flower. Similarly, when the phase spectrum of an image is randomly swapped across frequencies, that is its Fourier energy is randomly distributed over the image, the resulting image becomes impossible to recognise. Our goal was to evaluate the effect of phase manipulations in a quantitative manner. Subjects viewed two images of natural scenes, one of which contained an animal (the target) embedded in the background. The spectra of the images were manipulated by adding random phase noise at each frequency. The phase noise was the independent variable, uniformly distributed between 0° and ±180°. Subjects were remarkably resistant to phase noise. Even with ±120° noise, subjects were still 75% correct. The proportion of correct answers closely followed the correlation between original and noise-distorted images. Thus it appears as if it was not the global phase information per se that determines our percept of natural images, but rather the effect of phase on local image features.

Web [BibTex]

Braun, D., Wichmann, F., Gegenfurtner, K. Phase information in the recognition of natural images Perception, 31(ECVP Abstract Supplement):133, 25th European Conference on Visual Perception, August 2002 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

Detection and discrimination in pink noise

Wichmann, F., Henning, G.

5, pages: 100, 5. T{\"u}binger Wahrnehmungskonferenz (TWK), February 2002 (poster)

Abstract

Much of our information about early spatial vision comes from detection experiments involving low-contrast stimuli, which are not, perhaps, particularly "natural" stimuli. Contrast discrimination experiments provide one way to explore the visual system's response to stimuli of higher contrast whilst keeping the number of unknown parameters comparatively small. We explored both detection and contrast discrimination performance with sinusoidal and "pulse-train" (or line) gratings. Both types of grating had a fundamental spatial frequency of 2.09-c/deg but the pulse-train, ideally, contains, in addition to its fundamental component, all the harmonics of the fundamental. Although the 2.09-c/deg pulse-train produced on our display was measured using a high-performance digital camera (Photometrics) and shown to contain at least 8 harmonics at equal contrast, it was no more detectable than its most detectable component; no benefit from having additional information at the harmonics was measurable. The addition of broadband 1-D "pink" noise made it about a factor of four more detectable than any of its components. However, in contrast-discrimination experiments, with an in-phase pedestal or masking grating of the same form and phase as the signal and 15% contrast, the noise did not improve the discrimination performance of the pulse train relative to that of its sinusoidal components. We discuss the implications of these observations for models of early vision in particular the implications for possible sources of internal noise.

Web [BibTex]

Wichmann, F., Henning, G. Detection and discrimination in pink noise 5, pages: 100, 5. T{\"u}binger Wahrnehmungskonferenz (TWK), February 2002 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

Application of Monte Carlo Methods to Psychometric Function Fitting

Wichmann, F.

Proceedings of the 33rd European Conference on Mathematical Psychology, pages: 44, 2002 (poster)

Abstract

The psychometric function relates an observer's performance to an independent variable, usually some physical quantity of a stimulus in a psychophysical task. Here I describe methods to (1) fitting psychometric functions, (2) assessing goodness-of-fit, and (3) providing confidence intervals for the function's parameters and other estimates derived from them. First I describe a constrained maximum-likelihood method for parameter estimation. Using Monte-Carlo simulations I demonstrate that it is important to have a fitting method that takes stimulus-independent errors (or "lapses") into account. Second, a number of goodness-of-fit tests are introduced. Because psychophysical data sets are usually rather small I advocate the use of Monte Carlo resampling techniques that do not rely on asymptotic theory for goodness-of-fit assessment. Third, a parametric bootstrap is employed to estimate the variability of fitted parameters and derived quantities such as thresholds and slopes. I describe how the bootstrap bridging assumption, on which the validity of the procedure depends, can be tested without incurring too high a cost in computation time. Finally I describe how the methods can be extended to test hypotheses concerning the form and shape of several psychometric functions. Software describing the methods is available (http://www.bootstrap-software.com/psignifit/), as well as articles describing the methods in detail (Wichmann&Hill, Perception&Psychophysics, 2001a,b).

[BibTex]

Wichmann, F. Application of Monte Carlo Methods to Psychometric Function Fitting Proceedings of the 33rd European Conference on Mathematical Psychology, pages: 44, 2002 (poster)

[BibTex]

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