Neuroimaging of multisensory processing in vision,audition, touch,and olfaction

The development of neuroimaging methods has had a significant impact on the study of the human brain. Functional MRI, with its high spatial resolution, provides investigators with a method to localize the neuronal correlates of many sensory and cognitive processes. Magneto- and electroencephalography, in turn, offer excellent temporal resolution allowing the exact time course of neuronal processes to be investigated. Applying these methods to multisensory processing, many research laboratories have been successful in describing cross-sensory interactions and their spatio-temporal dynamics in the human brain. Here, we review data from selected neuroimaging investigations showing how vision can influence and interact with other senses, namely audition, touch, and olfaction. We highlight some of the similarities and differences in the cross-processing of the different sensory modalities and discuss how different neuroimaging methods can be applied to answer specific questions about multisensory processing.Edited by: Marie-Hélène Giard and Mark Wallace     

Computing Qur’ans: A Suggestion for a Digital Humanities Approach to the Question of Interrelations between English Qur’an Translations

The present article is primarily intended as a methodological contribution to Islamic Studies providing an example of how the power of computer-aided text analysis can benefit the field. The data consists of a set of 51 lexicons created out of translations of the Qur’an into English. The analysis applies simple programming to calculate the lexical overlap between translations and uses the results in a preliminary discussion of possible influence of earlier on later translations. The results are compared with conclusions arrived at in previous research on the interrelationship between translations and are also used to identify and suggest new areas for in-depth studies.     

The relationship between comprehension and metacomprehension ability

We investigated the relationship between the ability to comprehend text and the ability to predict future performance and to assess past performance on text. Subjects were poor at predicting performance, which may be why prediction accuracy did not relate to measures of comprehension ability. Measures of comprehension ability did relate to the accuracy with which subjects assessed their performance on tests. Better and faster comprehenders judged their relative levels of test performance over sections of text more accurately than did poorer and slower comprehenders.     

Expectancy-value models of health behaviour: An analysis by conjoint measurement

Various studies in the health area consistently rejected the multiplicative combination between severity and probability of threat which is predicted by expectancy-value (EV) theories. It is hypothesized here, that this negative evidence may be due to an overly demanding assumption underlying the multiplicative combination, namely, the assumption that people are able to performs trade-offs between expectancies and valences. This hypothesis is tested in two studies in which subjects judged hypothetical health threats. Results from a nonparametric analysis (conjoint measurement) of individual data (Study 1) and an experimental study of trade-off judgments (Study 2) are mostly consistent with the prediction. Unexpectedly, however, an ANOVA of the aggregate data of Study 1 yielded a small, but significant effect consistent with the multiplicative assumption. Whereas this latter result can be interpreted as evidencing an attempt to perform trade-offs, the overall results show as predicted that trade-off judgments are associated with a systematic error component due to the inherent difficulty of this type of judgment.