An invitation to coupling and copulas: With applications to multisensory modeling

This paper presents an introduction to the stochastic concepts of coupling and copula. Coupling means the construction of a joint distribution of two or more random variables that need not be defined on one and the same probability space, whereas a copula is a function that joins a multivariate distribution to its one-dimensional margins. Their role in stochastic modeling is illustrated by examples from multisensory perception. Pointers to more advanced and recent treatments are provided.