Functional Methods for Multimodal Data Analysis

Functional data analysis (FDA) encompasses a variety of statistical methodologies used to handle functional data, which may include various data modes such as time series data, spatial data, and imaging data. FDA addresses key challenges in multimodal data analysis, for instance, by summarizing, aligning, and fusing multiple data modes. In this chapter, we will discuss what are functional data and FDA, why FDA is particularly useful for multimodal data fusion, and how it can be applied to analyze multimodal datasets.