As defined by Theoretical Neuroscience Textbook,
- Receptive Field defines how Neurons in the Retina, Primary Visual Cortex, and LGN respond to light stimuli for a specific region.
- More generally, it can be any specific area on the body surface, visual field, or auditory spectrum where a given stimulus alters the Firing Rate of a sensory Neuron
- of important note is the inherent hierachichal organization, much like that of earlier interpretations of classic Multi Layer Perceptron ( where Artificial Neurons in deeper layers were thought of as encoding more general features )
- in the neuro case, receptive fields get larger and more complex as the information moves up the neural pathway, starting at the basic photoreceptors and going all the way up to complex cortical cells that recognize shapes for faces
- a great example of seeing what higher level receptive fields encode in the visual cortex can be seen in Sophia Sanborn’s project Letting the Neural Code Speak
- in the neuro case, receptive fields get larger and more complex as the information moves up the neural pathway, starting at the basic photoreceptors and going all the way up to complex cortical cells that recognize shapes for faces
