This study examined judgments of similarity and difference between pairs of paintings. The stimull included 16 groups of paintings, each group composed of an anchor and hour comparison paintings that were similar to and/or different from the anchor in subject matter and style. Forty-eight subjects, including an equal number of na?ve an experienced male and female undergraduates, judged whether 64 pairs of paintings were “similar” or “different.” In within-subjects design, viewers were instructed to judge subject matter or style from either subjective emotional or objective analytical test. Results showed that difference was judged more accurately. More quickly, and with greater certainty than similarity, and that subject matter was judged more easily than style. Judgments of differing subject matter interfered with the perception of similar style, particularly when the viewer adopted an objective set. Conversely, differing style interfered with judgments of similar subject matter, particularly when the viewer adopted an emotional set. Bender differences in modes of discerning style were also found. The overall results are interpreted in terms of a contrast between holistic processes that unify paiterans and analytioal processes which focus on disorimination features.