Star formation mode distribution in each merger stage. The filled circles indicate the median, and the bold lines show the percentile including 34% of objects from each side of the median (equivalent to one sigma). The horizontal solid and dashed magenta lines represent the MS. The top panel shows the SF mode distribution of the entire sample. The bottom panel shows the SF mode distribution of the merging galaxies separated by late type (blue) and early type (orange). The HDs are separated into the late- and early-type categories (see text for details).