title: How sensory maps could enhance resolution through ordered arrangements of broadly tuned receivers.
abstract: We investigate the properties of a model recently introduced by Heiligenberg (1987) for an array of sensors tuned to progressively higher ranges of a continuous stimulus variable x and with bell shaped single response curve with width parameter d. The main result is that as d increases, the overall response rapidly becomes almost linear in a very smooth and robust fashion. Biological relevance and implications of the model and of its extensions are discussed together with a few examples.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mathematics, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla 92093.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Baldi
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Heiligenberg
mesh_terms: D008433:Mathematics; D008959:Models, Neurological; D009475:Neurons, Afferent / Q000502:physiology*