The Individual as an Information Processing System 



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Fig. 1. 

 mation 



5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 



AVERAGE INPUT RATE PULSES PER SECOND X 10^ 



The channel capacity of a model neuron calculated by continuous infor- 

 theory for a Gaussian noise distribution with a standard deviation, <x, 

 or jitter = 5 ^ sec. Refractory period taken to be 1 msec. 



^ 00 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 



2 AVERAGE STIMULATION RATE IN PULSES PER SECOND ( Poisson Input) 



Fig. 2. The channel capacity of a model organ system calculated by continuous 

 information theory for a Gaussian noise distribution with a standard deviation, cr, 

 or jitter = 1 msec. Refractory period taken to be 50 msec. 



the optic cortex. Similar calculations from this experiment gave 

 us a curve of comparable shape. The channel capacity, however, 

 was of the order of fifty bits per second (Fig. 2). 



