Bias and variance of the Bayesian-mean decoder
Authors: Arthur Prat-Carrabin
Michael Woodford
Venue: NeurIPS 2021 Spotlight (2021)
Keywords: neuroscience
perception
encoding-decoding models
efficient coding
Bayesian inference
Bayesian mean
perceptual biases

Abstract: Perception, in theoretical neuroscience, has been modeled as the encoding of external stimuli into internal signals, which are then decoded. The Bayesian mean is an important decoder, as it is optimal for purposes of both estimation and discrimination. We present widely-applicable approximations to the bias and to the variance of the Bayesian mean, obtained under the minimal and biologically-relevant assumption that the encoding results from a series of independent, though not necessarily identically-distributed, signals. Simulations substantiate the accuracy of our approximations in the small-noise regime. The bias of the Bayesian mean comprises two components: one driven by the prior, and one driven by the precision of the encoding. If the encoding is 'efficient', the two components have opposite effects; their relative strengths are determined by the objective that the encoding optimizes. The experimental literature on perception reports both 'Bayesian' biases directed towards prior expectations, and opposite, 'anti-Bayesian' biases. We show that different tasks are indeed predicted to yield such contradictory biases, under a consistently-optimal encoding-decoding model. Moreover, we recover Wei and Stocker's "law of human perception", a relation between the bias of the Bayesian mean and the derivative of its variance, and show how the coefficient of proportionality in this law depends on the task at hand. Our results provide a parsimonious theory of optimal perception under constraints, in which encoding and decoding are adapted both to the prior and to the task faced by the observer.

Bias and variance of the Bayesian- decoder
Arthur Prat-Carrabin Department Economics Columbia University New York, USA arthur pacbuurp@colmmiia. edu
Michael Woodford
Department of Economics Columbia University New York, USA mv22308columbia. edu
Abstract
Perception, in theoretical neuroscience, has been modeled as the encoding of external stimuli into internal signals, which are then decoded. The Bayesian mean is important decoder, as it is optimal for purposes of both estimation and discrimination. We present widely-applicable approximations to the bias and to the variance of the Bayesian mean, obtained under the minimal and biologically- relevant assumption that the encoding results from a series of independent, though not necessarily identically-distri distributedd signals. Simulations substantiate the accu- racy of our approximations in the small-noise regime. The bias of the Bayesian mean comprises
components: one driven the prior, and one driven by the precision of the encoding. If the encoding is 'efficient', the two components have opposite effects; their relative strengths determined by the objective that the en- coding optimizes. The experimental literature on perception reports both 'Bayesian" biases directed towards prior expectations. and opposite, 'anti-Ba Batti-Bayssian' biases. We show that different tasks are indeed predicted to yield such contradictory biases, under a consistently-opting and Stocker's "law of human perception"
mncoding-decoddee model. Moreover, we recover Wei [1], relation between the bias of the Bayesian mean and the derivative of its variance, and show how the coefficient of proportionality in this law depends on the task at hand. Our results provide a parsimonious theory of optimal perception under constraints, in which encoding and decoding are adapted both to the prior and to the task faced by the observer.
1 Introduction
Perception has been described in neuroscience as resulting from a two-stage, cerrodinn-decodingg process. In the encoding stage, external stimulus elicits in the brain internal representation (in the form of a neural activity) whose statistics depend on the physical properties of the stimulus. the decoding stage, the brain makes use of the internal representation to achieve goal: for instance, estimate the magnitude of the stimulus, or to choose the best of two stimuli. It is generally understood that the encoding capacity of the brain is limited, i.e., that there is some amount of imprecision in the internal representation. The theory of 'efficient coding', however, proposes that the encoding is optimized, under constraint on the encoding capacity of the brain; and the theory of the 'Bayesian brain' puts forward the notion that the brain optimally decodes the imprecise representation, through Bayesian inference. Although these theories emerged separately, recent models of perception combine the two into single, normative account of perception 9
There does not decoding stages optimize [10]: some models (though not all [8)) the two stages optimize different objectives (6. 19. Furthermore, in behavioral experiments involving one-dimensional, physical magnitudes (such as some orientation or length), human perceptual decisions are often biased, and they exhibit variability ('noise"). Recent encoding- models of perception account for these
to be a general consensus, however, to what objectives the encoding and
35th Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NcurIPS 2021).

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patterns, and make specific predictions regarding how, in perceptual tasks, the bias and the variance of the estimates should relate to the distribution of stimuli (the prior). They predict, in addition. that the bias should be proportional to the derivative of the variance. Although there is substantial support for this relation in experimental data [1, the value of the constant of proportionality - including its sign remains unclear; it is thus uncertain, in a given task, whether the perceptual bias should be in one direction, or the other. Experimentally, biases towards the stimuli that are more probable as per the prior [1-14), and the opposite, i.e., biases towards the less probable stimuli ('anti-Bayese ManiiBayesiann percepts') ) 66 13777 have both been exhibited. Brayanov and Smith [7 simultaneously find the former in task involving (implicit) weight estimation, and the latter in a task involving weight discrimination.
The bias. in encoding-decoding decoding models of perception, is in great part determined by the 'decoder', i.e. the decoding mechanism. A widely used decoder is the Bayesian mean. The Bayesian mean is the optimal decoder both in estimation tasks (with squared-error loss), and in common type of discrimination tasks (which we describe in more detail below). It is, in the general case, biased; its bias depends on the prior, but also on the characteristics of the encoding. Here, we present an analytical approximation to the bias of the Bayesian mean, obtained under very general assumptions about the encoding. In short, the main assumption is that the encoding takes the form of a series of independent signals. These signals need not be identically distributed. This corresponds, for instance, to population of sensory neurons that are each characterized by different tuning curve. We do not endeavor to model the individual properties of each neuron in a population: instead, we rely on the statistical properties resulting from the accumulation of independent signals, summarized by their total Fisher information. This approach also provides an approximation to the variance of the Bayesian mean. A mathematical result similar to that presented here has been derived in the statisties literature [8]. but to our knowledge its importance for perception models has not been noted.
Two terms drive the bias of the Bayesian mean: the variations of the prior across stimulus space, and the variations the Fisher information. When the encoding is 'efficient', , these two terms have opposite effects. The resulting size and sign - of the bias will depend on the specifics of the encoding, and on the objective it optimizes. We show, below, how the encoding objective function determines the relation between the bias and the prior, the direction of the bias, and the relation of proportionality between the bias and the derivative of the variance. Our results explain why opposite biases are obtained in different experiments: when the encoding is optimized for estimation task (with squared-error loss), the bias is directed towards the more probable stimuli; while when the encoding is optimized for discrimination tasks, the opposite is predicted. Finally, we simulations, and examine how the accuracy of our asymptotic approximations vary with the amount of imprecision in the encoding.
2 Bias and variance of the Bayesian mean
We consider an observer presented with a stimulus characterized by magnitude, x (for instance, its length, its orientation, or its speed), which is randomly sampled from a prior distribution, <zx). We assume that the presentation of the stimulus elicits in the brain of the observer an internal represen- tation, r, as a series of n random signals, ri...., F'. sampled independently from n distributions conditioned on the stimulus, fe(ra (rr). We assume in addition that moments of a sufficient order exist for all i, and that the rate of growth of these moments is limited in a way that allows us to use a central limit theorem (see Supplementary Materials). This is the encoding stage. We emphasize that we assume the signals to be independent, but not necessarily that they are identically distributed. They can be understood as representing the activity of a neural population in which each neuron has a different tuning curve, for instance centered on a 'preferred' stimulus. (The result we present is however mathematical one, and is thus not tied to a particular physical implementation.) The internal representation, r, is characterized by its Fisher information, / (z). which is the sum of the Fisher informations of each signal; it is thus of order n. Our calculations rely the asymptotic statistical properties resulting from the accumulation of these signals, when n is large. The Fisher information plays here central role, by providing summary measure of the sensitivity of the representation to the stimulus, effectively abstracting away the specifics of each random signal (such as, for instance, the individual properties of each neuron in population).
Turning to the decoding stage, we assume that our observer uses the Bayesian mean. We sketch, here, the derivation of the approximations to the bias and to the variance of this decoder (a more

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detailed derivation is presented in the Supplementary Materials). Given an internal representation, the Bayesian mean
2 L (r) [[]]r]
(1)
[ (
Fixing r. we denote by [(x)) the log-likelihood of stimulus x, i.e., L(x) = =i= In Mi(rla)) The log-like leeelikelioodd is thus of order n. We rewrite Eq. ( using the log- logllikel,hood, as
_ Y (() dē (()) J [T)))eL())
This equation is the ratio of two integrals of the type J (())) dž. With large n, the integrands dominated by their values at the point where L(x)) reaches its maximum, i.e., at the maximum- likelihood estimator (MLE). Through Laplace approximations of these integrals, we obtain an approximate expression of the Bayesian mean, equal to the MLE corrected by term of order 1 I/n that depends on the prior, on the likelihood, and on their derivatives. The MLE has been widely studied in statistics: approximations to its bias and to its variance, as functions of the Fisher information, I (x), are well known (19H21] This allows us to obtain an approximation of order I/n to the bias of the Bayesian mean, as
x
(x) (x)
I' ['(x) T(x)
E i x x=|0]] = b(x)
T(x:)
where r is the true value of the stimulus, and n' and I' are the derivatives of the prior and of the Fisher information. We emphasize that this is very general result about the Bayesian mean, obtained under one main assumption, that a series of independent signals, not necessarily identically distributed, encodes the stimulus.
Equation (3) shows, first, that the bias of the Bayesian mean scaled by the inverse of the Fisher information, 1/x(x). In other words, the more precise the internal representation about the stimulus, the smaller the bias. Second, the bias depends on the difference between the relative variation of the prior (around x), x' <<x)/T(xx), and the relative variation of the Fisher information, /'(x)/T(a) The former induces a 'prior effect', by which the Bayesian mean tends to be biased towards more probable stimuli. The latter induces an "encoding effect', by which the bias tends be in the direction of decreasing precision of the encoding. The resulting direction of the bias is the sum of these two effects. If more probable stimuli are encoded with a higher precision (i.c., if n and 1' have the same sign). which is what efficient-coding models suggest (see below), then these two effects are opposite. If in addition the encoding effect is stronger than the prior effect, then the Bayesian mean is biased towards stimuli of decreasing probability, a bias direction that has been qualified as 'anti- mati-Bayesian' 17). although here it is obtained with a Bayesian-mean decoder.
Finally, it is well known that the variance of the MLE converges to the inverse of the Fisher information, 1/T(x). It is thus the leading term of the variance of the Bayesian mean, and find that the additional terms, in the approximation to this variance, are of orders higher than 1 I/n. Hence the inverse of the Fisher information is our approximation of order 1/n to the variance of the Bayesian mean, i.c.,
1
Var 2 2 = =(x) I(x)
The Bayesian-mean decoder is thus less variable for stimuli that are encoded with higher precision. Equations (3) and (4) underline how the bias and the variance of the Bayesian mean depend on the precision of the encoding, measured by the Fisher information. Different choices of encoding thus result in different behaviors of the bias and of the variance. We now turn to the question of how the choice of encoding can be efficiently adapted to the specific task faced by the observer.
3 Efficient coding
Perception allows obtaining some information about the environment, which can then be used to make decisions. In many situations, an increased precision about the relevant variable (here, the stimulus x)) results in better decisions, and higher rewards. In our setting, the Fisher information of the encoding stage is measure of this precision. With unbounded Fisher information (1()) + oc), i.c. with
3

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infinite encoding precision, the variable is known exactly: both the bias and the variance vanish (Eqs. (3) and ( It however unlikely that the brain can reach infinite precision the encoding stage, as both the number of neurons and their firing rates are bounded quantities. Ffffciint-coding models, accordingly, assume that there is a limit to the brain's 's encoding capacity. Within this limit, however, the encoding is assumed to be chosen so as to optimize some objective. Below, we derive the optimal encoding for each of several objective functions, and we examine the resulting bias and variance of the Bayesian-mean decoder.
3.1 Encoding objectives for different tasks
As the Bayesian-meat meesinnn-mann decoder the one that minimizes the expected squared error, we start by examining the implications for the encoding stage of this objective function (which corresponds to an estimation task). Given a stimulus, I, the expected squared error, averaged over the internal representations, r, is approximately the inverse of the Fisher information, 1/T(a:) (see Supplementary Materials). Given a prior distribution of stimuli, (1)), the expected square error, averaged over the stimuli, x, is thus approximately
T
dx.
(5)
T(x)
An encoding efficiently adapted to this estimation task is thus one in which the Fisher information minimizes this objective function, under a constraint.
Before further specifying this optimization problem, we examine other objectives, that are implied by other tasks. An interesting task is one in which the observer asked to choose between two presented stimuli, To and Z1, and then receives reward equal to (or proportional to) her choice, ie., the observer "gets what she chooses" [22]. which is generally the outcome in many choice situations (we call this "discrimination task with proportional rewards": it is different from a "discrimination task with constant rewards", in which the observer obtains a constant reward if the chosen stimulus is the correct one, and zero otherwise [23]: we consider the latter case further below). With this task, assuming that the two stimuli elicit in the brain of the observer two independent internal representations, ro and T1. the optimal decoding strategy is to estimate and compare the expected rewards implied by cither choice, i.c., to compute the expected values of the two stimuli, i(ro) and ((r1). The Bayesian mean, thus, is also the optimal decoder for this task. This calls for the examination of the optimal encoding in this case. Given two stimuli, To and ø1, the observer is guaranteed obtain least the smaller of the two, thus her loss if she chooses the wrong is the absolute difference between the two, [ zul. Hence she aims at minimizing the expected loss
// P(error z |am (0)) (x)1)))))))))))))))) dæ dri,
(6)
21) is the probability of choosing the wrong stimulus (the smaller one); this probability depends on the Fisher information that characterizes the observer's encoding stage, / (z). We find (see Supplementary Materials) that with large n the expected loss approximated by the quantity
where P(error (rrror/argg:000
π 7x)) ((x)
dz.
(7)
In both this discrimination task and the estimation task above, a larger Fisher information results in a smaller loss, and thus better decisions. However, the objective of this discrimination task (Eq. (7)) and that of the estimation task (Eq. (5)) are not the same. This yields qualitative differences in perception, which we examine further below.
The two encoding objectives presented far are such that the decoding used by our observer (the Bayesian mean) optimizes these objectives, resulting in an encoding-decoding mechanism consistently optimized for these objectives. Another encoding objective studied in the literature is the maximization of the mutual information between the stimulus and the internal representation, purpose' encoding objective, that is useful for
MI(x, r). This objective has been seen many different tasks, although not optimal for most 66] [0]. As shown by Clarke and Barron (4)). when the internal representation is series of n signals (as have assumed), the mutual information can be approximated using the Fisher information, as
ggnnera-purppose'
1 In n
+ H(X)= + 2 / m(x) ((0) [(x) dr o(1),
MT(xrr) r) = 2 2Te
(8)
4

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where (X) is the entropy of the stimulus. The first two terms of this equation do not depend on the Fisher information. As for the third term, we follow Ref. in noting that In (() lim (1 ()))-a), and thus maximizing the mutual information is equivalent to minimizing the objective function
lim
dx.
[o(x)
The similarities between Eqs.
5). and (9 call for considering the general objective function
π
dr,
(10)
IP/2
where [1,2] and > 0. This general objective function includes the three objectives mentioned above. In addition, with a minimizing the objective Eq. (10) is approximately equivalent to minimizing the Ip reconstruction error, as shown by Morais and Pillow [9]. With 1 and 1, corresponds to minimizing the average discrimination threshold (i.e., the distance needed be able to distinguish two stimuli that are close). Finally, with 2 and 1, Eq. (TO) is the expected loss
discrimination task with constant rewards (see Supplementary Materials).
3.2 Optimal encodings under a constraint
The general objective function just presented (Eq. I0 captures a large gamut of different objectives. In all cases, larger Fisher information results in improved decisions. We assume, however, that constraint prevents the observer's ' brain from choosing an unbounded Fisher information, i.e., that its encoding capacity limited. Specifically, we call 'efficient' an encoding that solves the problem
(x)
/ (112(4)) < <K92
min ((x)
dæ s.t. (x)
(11)
where a E (1,2).
p> O, q 0, and K 0. The constraint on the encoding capacity, in Eq. (11) is the same as in Ref. 99. but we minimize a more general objective function. The solution to this optimum problem
((x) K (x) J de
2a p 1-+0
where
(12)
Thus in all the tasks mentioned above, the optimal Fisher information is proportional to power of the prior (Ix x (=))), i.c., efficient coding allocates greater precision the more frequent stimuli, although the exact allocation depends on the specifics of the objective function 22 23 25 27) and of
the encoding constraint. Henceforth, we set q = 1. The resulting constraint is one that arises naturally
in noisy communication channel (see Supplementary Materials); it is the constraint used in Ref. [6]
4 Behavior of the Bayesian mean with different efficient codings
The Equation (12 just presented implies that the relative variation of the Fisher information is proportional to the relative variation of the prior, as
f'(x) <'xx) [(x)
(13)
T(x)
In other words, the 'encoding effect', as we have called it above, predicted to be proportional to the 'prior effect', and the former is larger than the latter if As mentioned, the relative strength of these two effects determines the direction of the bias. Substituting Eq. (13 in our approximation of the bias (Eq. (3)) results in
b(x: (1 (1 T' 1 π(x) I(x)
(14)
which makes predicting the sign of the bias straightforward: if < 1, the bias is directed toward stimuli of increasing probability, while if 7 1, it directed toward stimuli decreasing probability
(and if 1, there is no bias).
5

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Before relating these predictions to the corresponding objective functions, we look at the variance of the Bayesian mean and how it relates its bias, when the encoding of the form prescribed by
Eq. (12). The variance of the Bayesian mean is approximately equal to the inverse of the Fisher information (Eq. (4) which proportional to a power of the prior (Eq. (22)), thus the variance of the Bayesian mean is inversely proportional to the same power of the prior, I.e.,
v(x) (T)
(15)
An efficient coding of the stimuli thus results in greater variability of the Bayesian mean for the stimuli that are less frequent. Furthermore, the bias can expressed as linear function of the derivative of the inverse of the Fisher information (e.g., substitute in Eq. (14) the relative variation of the prior implied by Eq. 133, i.e. as a linear function of the derivative of the variance, (z)). Specifically.
b(z) 7 (z)
(16)
The bias of the Bayesian mean is thus predicted to be proportional to the derivative of its variance. We note that the relation between these two quantities does not depend on the prior, (x)), hence is predicted even for an observer who holds incorrect beliefs about the distribution of the stimuli (perhaps because of incomplete learning).
Our results show that the direction of the bias, and the value and sign of the constant of proportionality in Eq. (16), depend on the objective function that the encoding stage optimizes, and thus on the task that the observer is facing. For an estimation task with squared-error loss (7 = 2/3), the bias is in the direction of the more probable stimuli. Conversely, for discrimination task with proportional rewards ( 4/3), the bias is in the direction of the less probable stimuli. Our observer's 's decoder, the Bayesian mean, optimal for the two tasks just mentioned, and thus for these two tasks and the corresponding optimal choices of encoding, the entire encoding- decoding process is consistently optimal; yet the resulting directions of the biases in these two tasks are opposite. This underlines the impact of the choice of encoding on the observer's perceptions. As for the other objectives, we find that minimizing the expected discrimination threshold (7 = 1) results in the absence of any bias (6(z)= 0), and minimizing the expected loss in discrimination task with constant rewards yields the same encoding as maximizing the mutual information (7 = 2), which results in a bias toward the less probable stimuli. Table I summarizes these results.
encoding-decoding
The direction of the bias of the Bayesian mean depends on the objective that the encoding stage optimizes. For each of the encoding objectives (rows), values of the corresponding constants (a. and Y, with proportional to (Ixx) x). sign of the bias of the Bayesian mean in comparison that of the derivative of the prior (br'), and relation between the bias, b(z), and the derivative of the variance, v'xz). If bu < 0, the bias is 'anti- aati-Bayesiann i.c., in the direction of less probable stimuli. *** indicates the objectives for which the Bayesian mean is optimal.
Table 1:
1). power of the prior which the optimal Fisher information is
Encoding objective
a
Y
1(x) x
bu
Bias vs. variance
Squared error*
1
2/3
n (1)
b(x) 2 (2(2x)
Discrimin. threshold
1
1
(Tx)
b(x) 0
Discrimin. task with proportional rewards*
2
2
4/3
n x1/3(x))
0
b(x) = 1z)())
Discrimin. task with constant rewards
2
2
7²(x)
< 0
b(x) = (1)(())
Mutual Information MI(x, r)
1
2
2x)
< 0
b(x) = 11)())
5 Simulations
To assess the quality of the approximations presented above, we run simulations of an encoding- decoding process, and compare the approximated and true values of the bias and variance of the Bayesian-mean decoder, with different efficient encodings, and under different amounts of imprecision in the encoding. We study case in which a -iittllydistriiuuted stimulus is encoded through

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Squareed Error*
Diserimination Thrshhld (t
Discz. Tock (Prop. Reward)" (7 m 4/3)
Teck (Cal Rewart) ( 2)
2,33
1006
0.005
0.01
D.00
0.3
603
b(a)
Staatard Deviettnn
30
10
1a
29 -20 100
Figure 1: Bias and variance of the Bayesian mean, and approximations thereof, under different encodings. First row: Bias, b" (x) (solid lines), and approximation to the bias, b(x) (dashed lines), as function of the stimulus magnitude, z, with different amounts encoding noise, V, and with the encoding adapted to four different objectives, each characterized by its constant 2/3, 1, 4/3, and 2 (columns). The second panel also shows the prior, a standard normal distribution (m = 0, a = 1). Second row: Standard deviation, e² (x) (solid lines), and its approximation, u(r) (dashed lines).
normally-distribe representation. Specifically, the prior is a Gaussian distribution with mean m and standard deviation a, i.e., N(m, o²). Given stimulus, x. the distribution of the encoding internal representation, r, is Gaussian, centered on a transformation of the stimulus, μ(x), and with standard deviation (the 'encoding noise'), ), i.e., r/a (u((z), v²). The 'transducer' function + μu() is an increasing function that maps the stimulus space to the interval [0, 1]. The Fisher information of this encoding scheme is (xx (e' (z)//)²², i.c.. the local steepness of the transducer, together with the encoding noise, determine the precision of the encoding. It follows that any encoding rule of this kind necessarily satisfies the constraint Eq. [T] (with = 1), where the capacity limit is given by K 1/v². Efficient coding, with a given objective (i.e., with given 7), determines the Fisher information, and thus the transducer p(z). Under any objective considered here, the optimal encoding and decoding can be written in terms of the centered, scaled stimulus, (æ m)/o. Hence without loss of generality we study the case of a standard normal prior distribution, i.e., m 0 and Finally, note that we have posited scalar representation, r, and not multi minensinala vector, because in the case of independent Gaussian signals, a weighted sum the signals (which will itself be a Gaussian random variable) is sufficient statistic for the likelihood.
We run simulations which the encoding noise, V, spans a range of values: 0.05, and 0.1 (these different magnitudes of the encoding noise can be compared to the standard deviation of the prior,
0.005, 0.01, 0.02,
1). We simulate the encoding process for values of y that correspond to the objective functions mentioned above (7 E (2/3, 1, 4/3, 2}), including the expected square error (7 2/3, Eq. (5h) and the expected loss a discrimination task with proportional rewards (7 = 4/3, Eq. 77). for which the Bayesian mean is the optimal decoder. In all these cases (characterized by the encoding noise y and the constant 7), we numerically compute the true bias of the Bayesian mean and its variance, which we denote by 6* and o² (z), and compare them to their analytical approximations, b(x) and v(r).
When the encoding minimizes the expected squared error (y = 2/3), and when it minimizes the expected discrimination threshold (? 1), the true bias is in the direction of the mean of the prior, i.e,, for positive values of the stimulus, the bias is negative (Fig. [ first two columns, first row, solid lines). When encoding minimizes the expected loss discrimination tasks and when it maximizes the mutual information (y = 4/3 or 2), the stimuli close to the prior mean are perceived with bias away from the mean, and thus toward less probable stimuli. other words, with these encodings the encoding effect is stronger than the prior effect, and yields 'anti- Bayysian percepts Further from
7

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the prior mean, however, the direction of the bias reverses, and points toward the mean (i.e., toward the more probable stimuli; Fig. I last two columns, first row, solid lines). Hence when the bias is "anti-Baye -atii-Bayssinn for stimuli close to the mean, it reverses for stimuli farther from the mean. We note that it is not possible to have 'globally anti-Bayesian' bias: this is not only a feature of the specific examples shown here; it is general implication of posterior-mean estimation (see Supplementary Materials).
The approximation to the bias is accurate when the stimulus is close to the mean; its quality for given stimulus depends on the amount of encoding noise, v. With y = 2/3 (squared-error objective), and under small encoding noise (v S 0.01). the error in the approximation is below 10 for any stimulus within two standard deviations (#2 s.d.) of the prior mean (see Supplementary Materials). objective), the approximation to the bias is zero, while the true bias is different from zero, but small; under small encoding noise (v S 0.01) the error is below 10 for stimuli within + s.d. of the mean. With 4/3 and 2 (discrimination-tass) and mutual-information objectives), close to the prior mean the approximation directed away from the mean. Further from the mean, the approximation does not reverse (as does the true bias), resulting in large errors. However, within +2 s.d. of the prior and under small encoding noise (v S 0.01), the error remains below 10-3 for 7 = 4/3; and for 7 2, the error is below 10- for most stimuli within +2 s.d. (see Supplementary Materials). As for the standard deviation of the Bayesian- mean decoder, similarly, the approximation is more accurate for stimuli close to the prior mean, and errors increase with the encoding noise (Fig. second row).
With = 1 ddiserimination-theeseee
the bias is correctly
We also look at the true bias of the Bayesian mean, b² (xr) as a function of the derivative of its variance, d v² (ar), in order to examine the accuracy of the relation of proportionality between these quantities that we have derived from their approximations, when the encoding is optimized (Eq. (I6)). For stimuli near the prior mean, e.g., within one standard deviation (=1 s.d.), and under encoding noise v below 0.05, the true bias and derivative of the variance are fairly close to the line prescribed by the relation of proportionality. The slope of this line depends on the constant y, i.e., on the task for which the encoding is optimized (see Table Tp. For stimuli further from the mean, these two quantities diverge from the linear relation (Fig. 2 but the prediction that they should have the same sign holds over a range of stimuli. For instance, with 7 = and v = 0.02, the signs are the same for most values of the stimulus within +2 s.d. of the prior mean. This weaker prediction implies that we should have an auti--Baessin bias (when y > 1) over the range of stimuli in which the variance increases with the distance from the prior mean.
Squared Erve
Diserimination Threshold
Diar: Tosk (Prup. Rewaud)" m 4/33)
MI or Disc:, Tiek [Cr. Rewarl) (7 m?)
( 2/3)
-002
0.31
-084
0.0G
-000
0.01
0.23
0.02
-0.8
1.30
-032
-156
-1.33
010
141
016
1.4
0.00
0.11
3.00
3000
0.01
0.00
3.0
0.02
008
-2.05
11000
1903
d
[x)
Figure 2: Linear relation between the bias and the derivative of the variance, close to the prior mean. Bias, 8" (xxx,, as a function of the derivative of the variance, dr v" (ar). for positive values of the stimuli (x >> 0), with different amounts of encoding noise, (colored lines), and with the encoding adapted to different objectives. Equation (16) predicts linear relation between the two quantities (dashed line). With 7 < 1, the slope is negative; with 7 > 1, the slope is positive. For x = O, both quantities are zero. The dots and the stars indicate the points at which the stimulus is one and two standards deviations away from the prior mean (x = lo and 20). These curves are symmetric about
the origin; values for x < O are not shown here.
8

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6 Discussion
We have presented analytical approximations the bias and to the variance of the Bayesian-mean decoder, under the assumption that the stimulus is encoded through a series of independent signals, though not necessarily identically distributed. The approximated bias is the sum of two components: one driven by the variations of the prior, which directs the bias towards more probable stimuli, and one driven by the variations of the encoding Fisher information, which directs the bias towards less precisely encoded stimuli (Eq. (3). When the encoding is efficiently adapted to a given task (such as an estimation task or a discrimination task), these approximations predict a linear relation between the bias and the derivative of the variance (Eq. (T6). The overall direction of the bias depends on the task for which the encoding is optimized (Eq. (14). Table D). The approximations and the predicted
relation are most accurate in the small-noise regime (Fig. 1 a 2)
The approximation the bias (Eq. (3)) makes explicit the respective roles of the prior and of the encoding in the bias of the Bayesian mean. Traditionally, Bayesian models have been associated to biases directed towards the more probable stimuli [T1414]: in Eq. (3), the term involving the variations of the prior, π (x)/T(z), captures this 'prior effect'. The term involving the variations of the Fisher information, ((xr) is directed towards less-precisely encoded stimuli. Indeed, a yields imprecise representations, that a more precisely-encodee
stimulus that is less precisely-encode stimulus would be comparatively unlikely to yield; as result, the estimated stimulus, decoded from these representations, tends to be "pushed away" from the more precisely-encoder stimulus, and towards the less precisely-encoded stimulus.
This 'encoding effect' is opposite to the 'prior effect', if more probable stimuli are encoded with higher precision (as in efficient-coding models, e.g., Eq. (I2)). The ways in which the precision matters depend on the task at hand. Consider, for example, an estimation task with a loss function equal to j - =22". If p is large, then small errors do not matter greatly; while if p is small, the smallest error in the estimate results in a large loss. Thus with small p. the precision with which a stimulus is observed will have large impact on the task performance; and under constraint on the encoding capacity, it will be beneficial to allocate more precision to the more frequently occurring stimuli (e.g.. (xx) x x² (2r), in the limit p + 0). By contrast, with large p. a small estimation error will not yield a large loss, even for a stimulus that occurs frequently. This results in a different optimal allocation of the precision, with a 'flatter' Fisher information (in the limit p - oc, I(x) constant). other words, the variations of the optimal Fisher information depend on the extent to which small errors are costly. This also applics to other tasks: in a discrimination task with constant rewards, mis-ordering two stimuli that are extremely close results in the maximum possible loss; while in discrimination task with proportional rewards, it would only result in a loss proportionally as small as the difference between the two stimuli. Consequently, the former task results in an optimal Fisher information that varies more strongly with the prior than that in the latter task ([x) x n² (xx vs. T(x) xx π (zr); see Table D]. As for the objective of maximizing the mutual information, it is equivalent to the limiting case p + 0 of the estimation task, i.c., to task in which all mis-estimations of the stimulus are cqually costly, no matter how small the distance between the stimulus and the estimate.
If the 'encoding effect' is stronger than the 'prior effect', the resulting bias is 'anti anti-Bayesian', i.c., directed towards the less probable stimuli. Such biases have been reported in the literature 6 15 Although Wei and Stocker [6] show that efficient coding can indeed account for them, 'anti- matti-Bayesian biases seem at odds with the traditional 'Bayesian' biases mentioned above. An interesting example is provided by Brayanov and Smith [17. who find that when subjects compare the weights of two objects (a discrimination task), their perceptions are lanti-Bayssian'. But in a task involving the estimation of weights, the behavior of subjects is consistent with a 'Bayesian' bias, towards prior expectations. Our theoretical results readily explain these seemingly contradictory findings: different tasks imply different efficient codings, which imply different strengths of the 'encoding effect', and thus different biases. Specifically,, as shown in Table T an estimation task with squared-error loss results in bias towards more probable stimuli, while the two discrimination tasks we consider yield biases towards less probable stimuli. Our predictions are thus consistent with the empirical results of Brayanov and Smith.
We obtain, moreover, a relation of proportionality between the bias and the derivative of the variance of the Bayesian mean, when the encoding is efficient (Fq. (16)). This prediction is consistent with that of Wei and Stocker [.) who also predict a relation of proportionality, although only when the objective is to maximize the mutual information, which is not the objective in many tasks (moreover,

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actual encodings do not seem to be always consistent with this objective, even in early sensory areas (77). Wei and Stocker call the relation a 'law of human perception", and find strong empirical support for it; but the proportionality constant is left unspecified. In our derivation, the encoding optimizes a general objective function (Hq. (10), which includes the mutual information as a special case, but also includes objectives related to common tasks, such as estimation and discrimination tasks. We predict in addition how the value and sign of the constant of proportionality should depend on the objective that the encoding optimizes. Morais and Pillow [2] present related results: they also consider a generalized objective function, although it does not include discrimination tasks. They derive similar relation of proportionality in the case of the maximum a posteriori (MAP) decoder, and conjecture a relation in the case of the Bayesian mean. In these studies, however, often both the encoding and decoding stages are optimized to some objectives, but different ones, e.g. the encoding maximizes the mutual information while the decoding minimizes the squared emor. Although the mutual information might be reasonably good peneral-purpose" objective, the empirical results of Brayanov and Smith suggest that the brain is able to optimize different objectives. For estimation tasks with squared-error loss, and for discrimination tasks with proportional rewards, the encoding-decoding scheme we investigate is consistently optimal, i.c., both the encoding and the encoding are optimal for these tasks.
Our derivations rely on the following assumptions: the encoding consists in an accumulation of independent signals; it is optimized for given task, under the constraint in Eq. {TT: the decoder is the Bayesian mean; and the noise is small. Note that the assumptions of optimal encoding and decoding implicitly entails that the decision- maker knows the prior. Violations of these assumptions would distort the results in ways that would be interesting to explore, but that are outside the scope of this paper. The relevance of the Bayesian approach, for instance, has been matter of debate (see Refs. (30-3) ). As for the independence assumption, while noise in the activities of neurons in the brain is typically correlated (28 29 our derivations rely on central limit theorem, and we surmise that they should withstand some amount of correlation in the encoding.
Overall, our results suggest parsimonious theory of perception, which mainly rests on assumptions of optimality and on a constraint on the encoding capacity. Under this theory. just three elements shape the statistics of percepts: the prior, the specifies of the task, and the encoding constraint.
We do not see any obvious, potentially negative societal impacts of our research. Indirectly, a better understanding of human perception could be used for deceptive purposes; we deem such an application to be very speculative this stage.
Acknowledgments and Disclosure of Funding
This work was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (SES DRMS 1949418). A.P.C. was supported by a Fellowship from the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America at Columbia University.
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[29] Rava Azeredo Da Silveira and Fred Rieke. The Geometry of Information Coding in Correlated Neural Populations. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 44:403-424, 2021.
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Checklist
1. For all authors...
(a) Do the main claims made in the abstract and introduction accurately reflect the paper's contributions and scope? [Yes]
(b) Did you describe the limitations of your work? [Yes] See Simulations Figs. and
Supplementary Materials, sections B and E
(c) Did you discuss any potential negative societal impacts of your work? [Yes] See Discussion
(d) Have you read the ethics review guidelines and ensured that your paper conforms to them? [Yes]
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(b) Did you include complete proofs of all theoretical results? [Yes] See Supplementary Materials, section A.
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(b) Did you specify all the training details (e.g., data splits, hyperparameters, how they were chosen)? [N/A]
(c) Did you report error bars (e-g., with respect the random seed after running experi- ments multiple times)? [N/A]
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(d) Did you include the total amount of compute and the type of resources used (e.g., type of GPUs, internal cluster, or cloud provider)? [N/A]
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Reviews:
[{"review_id": "ymPNyFPoQSJ", "reviewer": "Reviewer_s1gn", "summary": "This is theoretical contribution investigating Wei and Stocker's so-called “law of human perception” (ref 1). The authors generalize the \"law\" to more include general loss functions inspired by Morais and Pillow (ref 9).", "questions": "", "limitations": "", "rating": 6, "confidence": 3, "soundness": null, "presentation": null, "contribution": null, "strengths": "", "weaknesses": "", "quality": null, "clarity": null, "significance": null, "originality": null, "strengths_and_weaknesses": "", "was_revised": false, "final_justification": "", "rebuttal": "", "claims_and_evidence": "", "methods_and_evaluation_criteria": "", "theoretical_claims": "", "experimental_designs_or_analyses": "", "relation_to_broader_scientific_literature": "", "essential_references_not_discussed": "", "other_strengths_and_weaknesses": "", "other_comments_or_suggestions": "", "questions_for_authors": "", "summary_of_paper": "", "summary_of_recommendation": "", "technical_quality": "", "clarity_of_presentation": "", "potential_impact": "", "robotics_focus": "", "quality_of_limitations": "", "questions_for_rebuttal": "", "reasons_to_accept": "", "reasons_to_reject": "", "questions_to_authors": "", "main_review": "I rather enjoyed reading this theoretical paper, for its clarity and rigor of the exposition.\nOriginality, however, could be higher. The main results are derived combining two existing and well known papers (ref 1 and 9)\n\nThe quality of the paper is good, technical derivations are detailed enough to follow and the paper does a good job of situating the contribution among  a fair a relevant set of references.  The main objection to the Bayesian approach are not included e.g. the critique offered by Bowers, J.S. and Davis, C.J., 2012. Bayesian just-so stories in psychology and neuroscience. Psychological bulletin, 138(3), p.389.    See also the well-tempered rebuttal of this critique in Griffiths, T.L., Chater, N., Norris, D. and Pouget, A., 2012. How the Bayesians got their beliefs (and what those beliefs actually are): comment on Bowers and Davis (2012).\n\nClarity is good. The paper is well written. \n\nSignificance is mainly in reviewing and putting the works of ref 1 and ref 9 in a joint exposure. ", "summary_of_the_paper": "", "summary_of_the_review": "", "strength_and_weaknesses": "", "limitations_and_societal_impact": "See above - no adversarial impact on society detected", "review_text": "", "extra_scores": {"ethical_concerns": "No ethical concerns", "needs_ethics_review": "No", "ethics_review_area": "", "time_spent_reviewing": "3"}, "extra_text": {}}, {"review_id": "Yq0rFjX5gt5", "reviewer": "Reviewer_5yDC", "summary": "The authors present a unifying account of how the bias and variance of the Bayesian mean estimator (in an encoder-decoder setup) are determined from the prior and the encoder’s Fischer information. They then use these approximations to the bias and variance to explore the behavior of Bayesian-optimal systems across a fairly wide range of objectives (estimation, MI maximization, discrimination). Their theoretical findings recapitulate known findings, and also offer an explanation for anti-Bayesian bias (when the bias is toward the stimulus with lower prior probability). Specifically, the bias is proportional to the sum of a Bayesian effect (toward the prior) and an anti-Bayesian effect, where the dominant direction depends on the specifics of the problem. The authors show that their approximations are fairly consistent with true values for a simple problem when the encoding noise is low.\n", "questions": "", "limitations": "", "rating": 7, "confidence": 3, "soundness": null, "presentation": null, "contribution": null, "strengths": "", "weaknesses": "", "quality": null, "clarity": null, "significance": null, "originality": null, "strengths_and_weaknesses": "", "was_revised": false, "final_justification": "", "rebuttal": "", "claims_and_evidence": "", "methods_and_evaluation_criteria": "", "theoretical_claims": "", "experimental_designs_or_analyses": "", "relation_to_broader_scientific_literature": "", "essential_references_not_discussed": "", "other_strengths_and_weaknesses": "", "other_comments_or_suggestions": "", "questions_for_authors": "", "summary_of_paper": "", "summary_of_recommendation": "", "technical_quality": "", "clarity_of_presentation": "", "potential_impact": "", "robotics_focus": "", "quality_of_limitations": "", "questions_for_rebuttal": "", "reasons_to_accept": "", "reasons_to_reject": "", "questions_to_authors": "", "main_review": "Overall, this paper is fairly well-written, clear, and well-thought out. The theoretical work appears sound, the simulations are fairly convincing, and the conclusions seem interesting. (However, being somewhat outside this exact field, I hope to leave it to others to assess the novelty of this work vis-a-vis other works that have promised to unify Bayesian and anti-Bayesian biases under a single framework.)\n\nThat said, one thing that would have made this paper more impactful to me would have been a more thorough interrogation of _why_ Bayesian or anti-Bayesian biases are optimal in specific situations. It seems like this is a deep question into which these authors have been granted a privileged viewpoint—their approximation to the bias. More specifically, I wanted the authors to spend more time unpacking the I’(x)/I(x) term, what it means, and what intuition we might gain that would help us guess which problems will have Bayesian or anti-Bayesian bias.\n", "summary_of_the_paper": "", "summary_of_the_review": "", "strength_and_weaknesses": "", "limitations_and_societal_impact": "The discussion of limitations is adequate.\n", "review_text": "", "extra_scores": {"ethical_concerns": "None.", "needs_ethics_review": "No", "ethics_review_area": "", "time_spent_reviewing": "2"}, "extra_text": {}}, {"review_id": "YhFaO0JMNE_", "reviewer": "Reviewer_hpiu", "summary": "The paper derives a parsimonious theory for the performance of a Bayes mean estimator under optimal encoder-decoder model. After identifying the equations for bias and variance, the authors explain bayesian and anti-bayesian biases that depend on task, and the relationship between bias and derivative of variance. ", "questions": "", "limitations": "", "rating": 8, "confidence": 3, "soundness": null, "presentation": null, "contribution": null, "strengths": "", "weaknesses": "", "quality": null, "clarity": null, "significance": null, "originality": null, "strengths_and_weaknesses": "", "was_revised": false, "final_justification": "", "rebuttal": "", "claims_and_evidence": "", "methods_and_evaluation_criteria": "", "theoretical_claims": "", "experimental_designs_or_analyses": "", "relation_to_broader_scientific_literature": "", "essential_references_not_discussed": "", "other_strengths_and_weaknesses": "", "other_comments_or_suggestions": "", "questions_for_authors": "", "summary_of_paper": "", "summary_of_recommendation": "", "technical_quality": "", "clarity_of_presentation": "", "potential_impact": "", "robotics_focus": "", "quality_of_limitations": "", "questions_for_rebuttal": "", "reasons_to_accept": "", "reasons_to_reject": "", "questions_to_authors": "", "main_review": "It is a very well written paper. While the mathematical results might not be completely new, but as the authors say, the connections to psychophysics are novel.\n\n* The title should be made less general, and mention the implications for perception/psychophysics. \n\n* How is the constraint on Fisher Information $\\int\\sqrt{I(x)}dx \\leq \\sqrt{K}$ justified? \nHow are the mathematical results affected when you use a slightly different constraint (such as $\\int I(x)^q dx \\leq K^q$ for arbitrary $q$ for example)? Do the main insights (such as anti-bayesian bias for certain tasks) still hold ? \n\n* Under what practical conditions are the assumptions of the theory violated? Listing them concisely would help a reader applying it to practical data. \n\n* Moreover, the utility of theory would be much more apparent if a re-interpretation of existing empirical data would be presented. Improving the paper along this line would make the paper more impactful.\n\n* Related, simulations with more practical considerations (finite n) and correlated neurons would help in highlighting the limitations of the theory for a reader. Another limitation is the assumption that decision reflects bayesian mean estimation. ", "summary_of_the_paper": "", "summary_of_the_review": "", "strength_and_weaknesses": "", "limitations_and_societal_impact": "No negative societal impact", "review_text": "", "extra_scores": {"ethical_concerns": "no ethical concern", "needs_ethics_review": "No", "ethics_review_area": "", "time_spent_reviewing": "6 hours"}, "extra_text": {}}, {"review_id": "LFGLjmuFgU", "reviewer": "Reviewer_v6Bb", "summary": "The paper investigates the bias (an the variance) of the Bayesian-mean decoder. The authors found that the bias is driven by two components: The variations of the priors and variations of the Fisher information, and the exact relation is driven by the encoding objective. Simulations are used to back the results.\n\nDisclaimer: I am an experimental visual psychophysicist with experience in Deep Learning. Thus the paper falls a bit outside my area of expertise (as indicated to the AC). I am focusing on the general aspects of this paper.", "questions": "", "limitations": "", "rating": 6, "confidence": 2, "soundness": null, "presentation": null, "contribution": null, "strengths": "", "weaknesses": "", "quality": null, "clarity": null, "significance": null, "originality": null, "strengths_and_weaknesses": "", "was_revised": false, "final_justification": "", "rebuttal": "", "claims_and_evidence": "", "methods_and_evaluation_criteria": "", "theoretical_claims": "", "experimental_designs_or_analyses": "", "relation_to_broader_scientific_literature": "", "essential_references_not_discussed": "", "other_strengths_and_weaknesses": "", "other_comments_or_suggestions": "", "questions_for_authors": "", "summary_of_paper": "", "summary_of_recommendation": "", "technical_quality": "", "clarity_of_presentation": "", "potential_impact": "", "robotics_focus": "", "quality_of_limitations": "", "questions_for_rebuttal": "", "reasons_to_accept": "", "reasons_to_reject": "", "questions_to_authors": "", "main_review": "Quality:\n\nI think this paper could be of great interest to the experimental/psychophysical community in general. However, I am missing one crucial point here; that is a comparison to experimental data. A comparison to the experimental data would make the paper much stronger. Right now, the mathematical details make an accurate impression, but without empirical support, it is difficult to judge the evidence for this theory. For this purpose, the authors could easily use existing datasets.\n\nFrom my point of view, using empirical data would make the paper much more interesting; for example, if one determines the mean and variance for some stimuli experimentally, one can draw conclusions about the corresponding coding strategy. Vice versa, one could try to enforce different encoding strategies and verify the predicted relation of mean and variance.\n\nClarity:\nOverall, the quality of the paper is very high. The previous work is presented clearly. Also the mathematical parts are well structured.", "summary_of_the_paper": "", "summary_of_the_review": "", "strength_and_weaknesses": "", "limitations_and_societal_impact": "The authors describe the limitations of the work implicitly. Although, they are never explicitly stated.", "review_text": "", "extra_scores": {"needs_ethics_review": "No", "ethics_review_area": "", "time_spent_reviewing": "5"}, "extra_text": {}}]

Author rebuttal:

Meta-review: This is a very clearly written paper that introduces a "parsimonious theory for the performance of a Bayes mean estimator under optimal encoder-decoder model. After identifying the equations for bias and variance, the authors explain bayesian and anti-bayesian biases that depend on task, and the relationship between bias and derivative of variance." (Reviewer hpiu)

The main results are derived combining existing work, but the connections to psychophysics are novel. The findings (for example the emergence of contradictory biases under a consistently-optimal encoding-decoding model, that depend on the cost of errors in the task) are very interesting. Supported also by the highly positive sentiment of the reviews, I anticipate that the paper will be perceived with interest by a broad audience, hence I suggest a spotlight.  
Decision: Accept (Spotlight)