Esthetic experience is the result of the coordination of different cognitive processes. It has been widely reported that top-down processes of orienting of attention interact with bottom-up perceptual facilitation occurring during esthetic experience of artworks. Here we use whole-part ambiguity as a tool to test the effect of global and local prime on esthetic appreciation of complex visual artworks. To this aim 139 healthy young individuals completed an esthetic judgment of Arcimboldo’s ambiguous artworks, which were preceded by a local or global prime. Their perceptual style was also assessed using a Navon task. We found that local prime significantly enhanced esthetic appreciation of ambiguous portraits. Also, we found that prime level interacted with individual’s perceptual style: participants showing local perceptual style liked less ambiguous portraits when they were preceded by global prime. Overall, the present findings shed some light on the processes involved in esthetic experience, pointing towards a pivotal role of re-direction of attention towards perceptual features of the artworks and its interaction with individual factors, such as perceptual style.

审美经验是不同认知过程协调的结果。据广泛报道，从上到下的注意力定向过程与在艺术品的审美体验中发生的自下而上的知觉促进作用相互作用。在这里，我们使用整体模糊性作为工具来测试全球和本地素数对复杂视觉艺术品的审美欣赏的影响。为此，有139名健康的年轻人完成了对Arcimboldo模棱两可艺术品的审美判断，然后再进行本地或全球盛事。还使用Navon任务评估了他们的感知风格。我们发现，本地素数极大地增强了歧义肖像的审美价值。此外，我们发现素数水平与个人的感性风格有相互作用：表现出本地感性风格的参与者在全球首相出现之前不喜欢模棱两可的肖像。总体而言，目前的发现为审美体验中涉及的过程提供了一些启示，指出了将注意力重新转向艺术品的感性特征及其与个体因素（例如感性风格）的相互作用的关键作用。