Methodologies for Multimodal Research

This special issue presents and discusses prominent methodsand tools for multimodal analysis and reception. It comprises an editorial, a set of six papers and a book review and brings together international researchers from Germany, Sweden, Denmark, United States and Singapore representing various disciplines: communication and media studies, social semiotics, cognitive science, educational psychology, health studies and visual communication.The methods include content analysis, social semiotic analysis, eye trackingmeasurements – in combination with think aloud protocols and retrospectiveinterviews – as well as iconology and psychophysiological real time measurements.The respective approaches are exemplified through detailed analysesof a variety of materials, including press photography, art, multimodal healtheducation materials, PowerPoint presentations, internet advertisements andTV media discussions.The aim of the issue is to exchange current and novel methodological approaches in order to analyze visuality and multimodality by using a multidisciplinary framework. The articles cover and integrate a wide range of theoretical and methodological approaches to visual communication and multimodality and use a triangulation of methods to study the following issues: dynamic aspects of image perception; the role of individual differences and expertise; the role of the goal/task and context for perception and interpretation of visuals, attentional and cognitive processing underlying interaction with visuals; the role of knowledge; the emotional impact of visuals; and the process of meaning-making (intersemiosis) and the relation between visual attention, meaning attribution and emotion