modality

Look up modality in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Modality can refer to:

Humanities

• In law: the basis of legal argumentation in United States constitutional law
• In theology: Modality (theology): the organization and structure of the church, as distinct from sodality or parachurch organizations.
• In music, the subject concerning certain diatonic scales known as musical modes (e.g., Ionian).
• In sociology, modality is a concept in Anthony Giddens structuration theory.

Linguistics

• Modality (semiotics), the channel by which signs are transmitted (oral, gesture, written)
• Linguistic modality, covering expressions of how the world might be and should be. This includes expressions of necessity, permissibility and probability, and negations of these.

Medicine

• Stimulus modality, a type of physical phenomenon that one can sense, such as temperature and sound.
• In cognitive neuroscience, cognitive psychology and the philosophy of perception, any of the qualitatively distinct types of sensation, such as sight, hearing, acceleration, heat and cold.
• In psychotherapy, a method of therapeutic approach.
• In medical imaging, any of the various types of equipment or probes used to acquire images of the body, such as radiography, ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging.
• Any method of therapy that involves therapeutic treatment.

Science and Technology

• Transportation modality, a mode of transport.
• modal logic, a form of logic which distinguishes between (logically) "necessary truths" and "contingent truths". Related topics include possibility, impossibility, actuality, and related predicates.
• modality (human-computer interaction), a path of communication between the human and the computer, such as vision or touch.
• In computer science and particularly computer vision, the type of input. For example, black-and-white, color and infrared represent three different modalities for the acquisition of an image.

Other uses

• In advance fee fraud (Nigerian 419 Scams), the method of funds transfers. Often used as a key-word in scam baiting.
• Modal realism, a view that all possible worlds are as real as the actual world.
• Modalities (trade negotiations), the formulas, targets, or specific measures used to accomplish objectives in trade negotiations.

See also

• Mode
• Modal

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