Efficient Coding Hypothesis and an Introduction to Information Theory

The Efficient Coding Hypothesis, suggests that sensory relays recode sensory messages, so that their redundancy is reduced, but little information is lost. Coding to reduce redundancy eliminates wasteful neural activity, and also organizes sensory information such than an internal model of the environment causing the past sensory inputs to built up, while the current sensory situation is represented in a way that simplified the task of the part of the nervous system which is responsible for learning and conditioning. We present studies on neurons using this hypothesis have shown promising evidence of its validity when applied to neurons, and discuss some criticisms and rebuttals of the hypothesis’ use.