{"id":721,"date":"2012-06-08T11:24:22","date_gmt":"2012-06-08T11:24:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/asc-cybernetics.org\/2012\/?page_id=721"},"modified":"2012-06-21T09:06:09","modified_gmt":"2012-06-21T09:06:09","slug":"confusing-the-confusion-matrix-the-paradigm-of-shannon-information-theory-versus-its-praxis-in-sensory-science","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/asc-cybernetics.org\/2012\/?page_id=721","title":{"rendered":"Confusing the \u201cConfusion Matrix\u201d: The Paradigm of Shannon Information Theory, Versus its Praxis in Sensory Science"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Participant: Lance Nizami<br \/>\nFormat: Presentation and Conversation<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/asc-cybernetics.org\/2012\/?page_id=95\">Themes<\/a>: paradigm, praxis<\/p>\n<p>Quantity of information flow in a system is a core cybernetics concept. It has been used frequently in Sensory Psychology since 1951. There, Shannon Information Theory was used to calculate \u201cinformation transmitted\u201d in \u201cabsolute identification\u201d experiments involving human subjects. Originally, in Shannon\u2019s \u201csystem\u201d, any symbol received (\u201coutcome\u201d) is among the symbols sent (\u201cevents\u201d). Not all symbols are received as transmitted, hence an indirect noise measure is calculated, \u201cinformation transmitted\u201d, which requires knowing the confusion matrix, a data-organizing tool, its columns labeled by \u201cevent\u201d and its rows labeled by \u201coutcome\u201d. Each matrix entry is dependent upon the frequency with which a particular outcome corresponds to a particular event. <\/p>\n<p>However, for the sensory psychologist, stimulus intensities are \u201cevents\u201d; the experimenter partitions the intensity continuum into ranges called \u201cstimulus categories\u201d and \u201cresponse categories\u201d, such that each confusion-matrix entry represents the frequency with which a stimulus from a stimulus category falls within a particular response category. Of course, a stimulus evokes a sensation, and the subject\u2019s immediate memory of it is compared to the memories of sensations learned during initial familiarization, to make a categorization. <\/p>\n<p>Categorizing thus introduces \u201cfalse noise\u201d, which is only removed if categorizations can be converted back to their hypothetical evoking stimuli. But sensations and categorizations are both statistically distributed, and the stimulus that corresponds to a given mean categorization cannot be known from only the latter; the relation of intensity to mean sensation, and of mean sensation to mean categorization, are needed. Neither, however, are presently knowable. This is a quandary, which arose because sensory psychologists ignored an ubiquitous component of Shannon\u2019s \u201csystem\u201d, the uninvolved observer, who calculates \u201cinformation transmitted\u201d. Human sensory systems, however, are within de facto observers, who cannot therefore be uninvolved, making \u201cfalse noise\u201d inevitable in this experimental paradigm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Participant: Lance Nizami Format: Presentation and Conversation Themes: paradigm, praxis Quantity of information flow in a system is a core cybernetics concept. It has been used frequently in Sensory Psychology since 1951. There, Shannon Information Theory was used to calculate &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/asc-cybernetics.org\/2012\/?page_id=721\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":26,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-721","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asc-cybernetics.org\/2012\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asc-cybernetics.org\/2012\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asc-cybernetics.org\/2012\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asc-cybernetics.org\/2012\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asc-cybernetics.org\/2012\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=721"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/asc-cybernetics.org\/2012\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/721\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":883,"href":"https:\/\/asc-cybernetics.org\/2012\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/721\/revisions\/883"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asc-cybernetics.org\/2012\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/26"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asc-cybernetics.org\/2012\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}