Feature integration across perception and action creates an episodic representation, known as a stimulus-response (S-R) episode or an event file, which can be retrieved upon reencountering one of the features. These stimulus-response binding and retrieval processes are influenced by several factors, including figure-ground segmentation, which is one of the Gestalt principles. Previous studies examining the figure-ground principle in feature integration have consistently shown that contextual features belonging to the background yielded substantially reduced binding effects compared to those belonging to a figure region (e.g., a confined area in the display). The current study further investigated whether color-taste correspondence influences the modulation of figure-ground segmentation on context integration within an S-R episode. Participants were required to identify English and Chinese pinyin words denoting the sour taste (i.e., “sour” and “suan”, respectively) while ignoring the surrounding context, presented as either a large (background) or a small (figure) colored area. The association between context colors and target words was manipulated by using either colors strongly associated with the specific taste of sourness (yellow and green, Experiment 1) or colors not associated with sourness (blue and red, Experiment 2). In Experiment 1, results revealed significant binding effects of the context color and the response regardless of the context’s spatial extent, showing an exception to the figure-ground principle in context integration. In Experiment 2, significantly reduced binding effects were observed in the background condition compared to the figure condition, replicating the previous findings of figure-ground modulation of context integration. Taken together, the current study demonstrates an important role of long-term associations in shaping fundamental cognitive processes like stimulus-response binding and retrieval, reflecting the dynamical weighting and balancing due to experience-driven factor in the cognitive system.

Qiu, R., & Mo, Y. (2025). Beyond Figure and Ground: Color-Taste (Word) Correspondence Influences Context Integration in an S-R Episode. Visual Cognition (in press).