Abstract: Binding problem is regarded as one of the central themes of cognitive science and neuroscience. The research on feature binding has given a great impetus to studies on cognitive and neural mechanisms of many mental processes. There are two approaches to the research on the mechanisms of feature binding, that is, the cognitive paradigm and the neuroscience paradigm. Among the cognitive theories, Feature Integration Theory (FIT) is the most representative; the formal theory is characterized by its modification in the measurement of illusory conjunction and in other aspects that were not properly dealt with by FIT, while the two-stage theory bridges the gap between pre-attentive binding and post-attentive binding. The temporal synchronization theory in neurosicence has been the most influential theory on binding mechanisms up till now, whereas the newly proposed neural network model appears to provide a more specific insight into the neural mechanisms of feature binding. Two trends were predicted that the integration of cognitive paradigm and neuroscience paradigm and deepening from researches of binding in basic cognitive processes to those in high-level psychological processes might be the focus of relevant researches in the future

Key words: feature binding, illusory conjunction, neuronal synchronization