Comparison of the semiparametric independent and the independent model.

A) Probability distributions of the total activity of the population, K(s) = ∑_i s_i, estimated from data and from model samples. Error bars are 3 SD (bootstrapped), with the model-generated sample size equal to that of the data. B) Comparison of the firing rates estimated from the data and from the model samples. The firing rates predicted by the independent model should exactly match the true firing rates. Error bars are 3 SD (bootstrapped). C) Comparison of the predicted pairwise covariance matrix elements estimated from the model and from data, for the semiparametric independent and the independent models. The scatter of independent model covariance elements around 0 illustrates the magnitude of the sampling noise.