Overview
Many organisms possess multiple sensory systems, such as vision, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. The possession of such multiple ways of sensing the world offers many benefits. These benefits arise not only because each modality can sense different aspects of the environment, but also because different senses can respond jointly to the same external object or event, thus enriching the overall experience-for example, looking at an individual while listening to them speak. However, combining the information from different senses also poses many challenges for the nervous system. In recent years, there has been dramatic progress in understanding how information from different sensory modalities gets integrated in order to construct useful representations of external space; and in how such multimodal representations constrain spatial attention. Such progress has involved numerous different disciplines, including neurophysiology, experimental psychology, neurological work with brain-damaged patients, neuroimaging studies, and computational modelling. This volume brings together the leading researchers from all these approaches, to present the first integrative overview of this central topic in cognitive neuroscience.
Synopsis
Many organisms possess multiple sensory systems, such as vision, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. The possession of such multiple ways of sensing the world offers many benefits. These benefits arise not only because each modality can sense different aspects of the environment, but also because different senses can respond jointly to the same external object or event, thus enriching the overall experience-for example, looking at an individual while listening to them speak. However, combining the information from different senses also poses many challenges for the nervous system. In recent years, there has been dramatic progress in understanding how information from different sensory modalities gets integrated in order to construct useful representations of external space; and in how such multimodal representations constrain spatial attention. Such progress has involved numerous different disciplines, including neurophysiology, experimental psychology, neurological work with brain-damaged patients, neuroimaging studies, and computational modelling. This volume brings together the leading researchers from all these approaches, to present the first integrative overview of this central topic in cognitive neuroscience.
Doody Review Services
Reviewer:Celso Agner, MD, MSc(University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine)
Description:Many organisms function by mutimodality stimulation. Understanding the degree of stimulation is important for the development of certain research protocols.
Purpose:The purpose of this book is to address the multimodality stimulation patterns present in different organisms. These are obvious concepts that, in my view, do not add much to the current knowledge in neuroscience. The authors, however, have met their objectives.
Audience:Neuroscientists are the most appropriate audience for this book.
Features:The 11 chapters are written by 24 authors. Although an interesting title, the topic is not necessarily new and multimodality stimulation has been identified and discussed in many previous publications. The new concepts in this book are the potential current explanation for such phenomenon. In my view, however, memory, language, and vision cannot be one single modality of stimulation but are, many times, interrelated. The pictures are of good quality and the text well written.
Assessment:This is a good book. However, I am reluctant to recommend it to any neuroscience library, due to its limited general approach and concentration on a specific field that is well published.
Editorials
From The Critics
Reviewer: Celso Agner, MD, MS, MSc(Michigan Neurology Partners)Description: Many organisms function by mutimodality stimulation. Understanding the degree of stimulation is important for the development of certain research protocols.
Purpose: The purpose of this book is to address the multimodality stimulation patterns present in different organisms. These are obvious concepts that, in my view, do not add much to the current knowledge in neuroscience. The authors, however, have met their objectives.
Audience: Neuroscientists are the most appropriate audience for this book.
Features: The 11 chapters are written by 24 authors. Although an interesting title, the topic is not necessarily new and multimodality stimulation has been identified and discussed in many previous publications. The new concepts in this book are the potential current explanation for such phenomenon. In my view, however, memory, language, and vision cannot be one single modality of stimulation but are, many times, interrelated. The pictures are of good quality and the text well written.
Assessment: This is a good book. However, I am reluctant to recommend it to any neuroscience library, due to its limited general approach and concentration on a specific field that is well published.
3 Stars from Doody