Objective: Listening to music and other auditory material during microscopy work is common practice among cytologists. While many cytologists would claim several benefits of such activity, research in other fields suggests that it might adversely affect diagnostic performance. Using a cross-modal distraction paradigm, the aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of auditory stimulation on the visual interpretation of cell images.Methods: Following initial training, 34 participants undertook cell interpretation tests under four auditory conditions (liked music, disliked music, speech and silence) in a counterbalanced repeated-measures study. Error rate, area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, criterion and response time were measured for each condition.Results: There was no significant effect of auditory stimulation on the accuracy or speed with which cell images were interpreted, mirroring the results of a previous visual distraction study. Investigations of auditory distraction in non-cytological domains suggest that the acoustic environment in the cytology reading room might affect diagnostic performance, and this provides a clear rationale for the current experiment. In cognitive terms, the question is whether task-irrelevant sound impairs visual performance. Cytologists seem to be polarised in their views on the matter (personal observation) but there is no published research in the field. Studies of auditory distraction in cognitive psychology are plentiful, however, and provide a guiding theoretical framework for the current experiment.According to a leading duplex-mechanism account of auditory distraction, sound can disrupt focal task processing either by attentional capture (where the irrelevant sound causes temporary