Many studies to date have supported empirically the reality of the so-called proximity compatibility principle. This principle states that emergent features tend to have beneficial effects on integrated and detrimental effects on focused task performance. In order to clarify the role of salience of various graphical features in relationship to this principle, an experiment was conducted in which the effect of emergent features and the salience of both graphical indicators and emergent features (if present) was studied on integrated and focused task performance using a graph reading task. It was found that, though the principle was confirmed in this study if its relationship with salience is ignored, taking salience of both lower-order and higher-order graphical features into consideration can significantly complicate the basic form of the principle. Illustrations are provided of how two types of salience can interact both with each other and with the type of task in rather unexpected ways. In the discussion the focus is on exploring the significance of these findings for furthering our theoretical understanding of these and similar phenomena from the field of graphical perception and for the practice of graph design.