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The unbiased estimation of the fraction of variance explained by a model
Fig 2
Simulation of the naive 
and unbiased 
estimators for model-to-neuron fits at varying levels of 
where m = 362, n = 4, and σ2 = 0.25.
(A) For true r2 = 1, at a moderately low SNR = 0.5, 
(blue) is on average 0.67 whereas 
(orange) is on average 1.00. The bias of 
(see Methods, “Bias of 
”) is small relative to its variability (90% quantile = [0.93, 1.07] vertical bars) and to the bias of 
. (B) Same simulation as A but at five levels of 
(0, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, 1). Lines show mean values of 
(blue) and 
(orange). Black line (beneath orange) shows true 
; error bars show 90% quantile.
doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009212.g002