Perceptual sensitivity is explained by optimization for ecological tasks
- 1Technical University of Denmark
Abstract
When asked to discriminate between two stimuli that differ along some dimension, such as intensity, frequency, or orientation, humans exhibit a smallest stimulus difference, or threshold, below which discrimination becomes impossible. These limits on perceptual sensitivity have traditionally been explained by internal noise. Contemporary theories instead link perceptual sensitivity to efficient coding of the natural environment but have not been comprehensively tested. Here, we measured the psychoacoustic sensitivity of a computational model optimized for everyday sound localization and recognition tasks. We used linear classifiers operating on the model's learned representations to estimate 1632 thresholds spanning the perceptual dimensions of sound. These model-derived thresholds closely matched thresholds measured behaviorally in humans on the same test battery. The results show that many classical psychophysical phenomena emerge from representations optimized for natural behavior and suggest that discrimination thresholds are determined by linear separability in these optimized representations, rather than intrinsic neural noise.
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BibTeX
@misc{saddler2026perceptual,
title = {{Perceptual sensitivity is explained by optimization for ecological tasks}},
author = {M. R. Saddler and T. Dau and J. H. McDermott},
howpublished = {bioRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.64898/2026.09.28.755158},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.28.755158v1},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Perceptual sensitivity is explained by optimization for ecological tasks
AU - M. R. Saddler
AU - T. Dau
AU - J. H. McDermott
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/28
PB - bioRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.09.28.755158
UR - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.28.755158v1
AB - When asked to discriminate between two stimuli that differ along some dimension, such as intensity, frequency, or orientation, humans exhibit a smallest stimulus difference, or threshold, below which discrimination becomes impossible. These limits on perceptual sensitivity have traditionally been explained by internal noise. Contemporary theories instead link perceptual sensitivity to efficient coding of the natural environment but have not been comprehensively tested. Here, we measured the psychoacoustic sensitivity of a computational model optimized for everyday sound localization and recognition tasks. We used linear classifiers operating on the model's learned representations to estimate 1632 thresholds spanning the perceptual dimensions of sound. These model-derived thresholds closely matched thresholds measured behaviorally in humans on the same test battery. The results show that many classical psychophysical phenomena emerge from representations optimized for natural behavior and suggest that discrimination thresholds are determined by linear separability in these optimized representations, rather than intrinsic neural noise.
ER -