Figure 3.

Preattentive and postattentive binding. This diagram demonstrates the two different forms of sensory binding. In example 1, the sensory percepts, e.g., visual and auditory, are bound after perception and therefore, attention is not required to bind them. In the second example, after perception, the visual and auditory perceptions are unbound and remain so until attention is directed at them. There are differing views as to which schematic better represents our own perception. Synesthesia may help show that attention is not required for binding, and thus example 1 is more accurate.