A sampling frequency required for symbol timing recovery is made smaller than that of the related art. A receiver 1 performs visible light communication with a transmitter 8. A received signal generating unit 112 measures an intensity of an electrical signal corresponding to an optical signal received from a transmitter 8 at a predetermined time interval to generate a sequence of received signals. A parameter estimation unit 12 uses a distribution of received signals estimated from the sequence of received signals to estimate any one or more parameters of a maximum luminance value, a synchronization shift, and a steady noise level, the one or more parameters including at least the maximum luminance value.