from the it's-not-patent-encumbered,-is-it? dept.
The brain uses data compression for decision-making:
If you were a kid in the 80s, or are a fan of retro video games, then you must know Frogger. The game can be quite a challenge. To win, you must first survive a stream of heavy traffic, only to then narrowly escape oblivion by zig-zagging across speeding wooden logs. How does the brain know what to focus on within all this mess?
A study published today (June 6th) in the scientific journal Nature Neuroscience provides a possible solution: data compression. "Compressing the representations of the external world is akin to eliminating all irrelevant information and adopting temporary 'tunnel vision' of the situation", said one of the study's senior authors Christian Machens, head of the Theoretical Neuroscience lab at the Champalimaud Foundation in Portugal.
"The idea that the brain maximises performance while minimising cost by using data compression is pervasive in studies of sensory processing. However, it hasn't really been examined in cognitive functions," said senior author Joe Paton, Director of the Champalimaud Neuroscience Research Programme. "Using a combination of experimental and computational techniques, we demonstrated that this same principle extends across a much broader range of functions than previously appreciated."
Journal Reference:
Motiwala, A., Soares, S., Atallah, B.V. et al. Efficient coding of cognitive variables underlies dopamine response and choice behavior. Nat Neurosci (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41593-022-01085-7
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MIRV888 on Wednesday June 08 2022, @10:29AM (4 children)
"Compressing the representations of the external world is akin to eliminating all irrelevant information and adopting temporary 'tunnel vision' of the situation"
Focusing on the task at hand isn't some new concept.
So all the tertiary stuff is compressed because it's not necessary.
I'm glad they proved this empirically, but it's been quantified in language for a very long time.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Gaaark on Wednesday June 08 2022, @10:32AM
Yup! I'd say Christian Machens, et al, is/are Captain Obvious!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Wednesday June 08 2022, @02:31PM
Is this "compression" really just some small adjunct neural network being trained by practice to preserve the valuable lives of frogs crossing the street?
Isn't such a trained neural network a kind of compression? What about a neural network (man made) that can identify cats in a photograph? Would someone call that "compression".
The server will be down for replacement of vacuum tubes, belts, worn parts and lubrication of gears and bearings.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday June 08 2022, @03:13PM (1 child)
This has been quantified in witness (un)reliability statistics, ever since people started collecting them.
Different people compress memory differently, and reconstruct it with different fill-in-the-blanks based on their life experiences.
I also believe that most perceptions (sight, sound, even smell taste and touch) are partial perceptions with similar fill-in-the-blanks feeding the inputs to the memory circuits.
Why waste bandwidth on total perception and total recall when that energy can be better expended getting laid?
You do the hokey pokey and you turn yourself about, that's what it's all about. Everything else is just accessories to support continuation of the germ-line.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 08 2022, @09:13PM
And then you only need to remember part of it and your mind will fill in the missing parts later to be better than it originally was!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Wednesday June 08 2022, @11:22AM (6 children)
When they say compression, they mean lossy compression. That is an important qualification, because if not indicated otherwise (either explicitly or by context, e.g. because it is well known that video compression usually is lossy), “compression” usually means “lossless compression”. Especially when qualified as “data compression”.
On the other hand, I wouldn't call any removal of unnecessary data as lossy compression. Am I doing lossy compression of my hard disk contents if I delete files I no longer need (or that contained irrelevant data to begin with, say some automatically generated log file that I'm not interested in)?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 08 2022, @12:31PM (2 children)
you are confused, they said "eliminating all irrelevant information", clearly not lossless.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday June 09 2022, @10:03AM (1 child)
Don't try any stupid "but you can't restore it, so it's a loss" argument, which I know you will be tempted to do, because you can restore it - it will be restored to values that are likewise irrelevant, and therefore are not meaningfully different from what they were before, as their value is irrelevant, that's what irrelevant means.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 09 2022, @09:17PM
pity there is no irrelevant mod.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday June 08 2022, @03:16PM
>Am I doing lossy compression of my hard disk contents if I delete files I no longer need
Simply analyzed: yes. You are losing information. Your judgement calls about what is needed or not don't change the information itself. Deleting (erasing) "useless" files does.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Thursday June 09 2022, @01:20AM (1 child)
> “compression” usually means “lossless compression”
Citation needed. I reckon 99.9% of all compressed digital data is lossy (high fidelity video/audio).
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Thursday June 09 2022, @12:59PM
"Compression" is a poor term for this. Leads directly to the wrong idea that data can be "compressed" repeatedly. I prefer Redundancy Removal.
Whichever, it definitely means both lossy and lossless.
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Wednesday June 08 2022, @11:29AM
Reminds me of this old awareness test [youtube.com]. Try it!
(Score: 3, Touché) by DannyB on Wednesday June 08 2022, @02:32PM (1 child)
Extremely violent video games such as Frogger are what is destroying our society! Someone must do something!
The server will be down for replacement of vacuum tubes, belts, worn parts and lubrication of gears and bearings.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday June 09 2022, @10:05AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 08 2022, @03:37PM
i guess it helps if the game sound effects/music and game grafics are called on the same loop...
simple: game gets faster, sound/effect gets faster too :P
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday June 08 2022, @07:28PM (1 child)
Guess again, Poindexter. I use a magic 8-ball.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 08 2022, @09:20PM
My sources say no.
(Score: 2) by legont on Thursday June 09 2022, @02:34AM (1 child)
See, our eyes deliver to our brain about 1% of information they get. Who exactly decides which one...
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday June 09 2022, @10:13AM
When photoreceptors reach activation potential, they fire and try to reset - there's no processing or decision making involved, no coordination with other receptors. And once it's down the optic nerve - it's brain.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves