<p>The behavioral immune system can produce strong perceptual responses to pathogen-prevalent stimuli. This experiment was designed to examine whether the presence of pathogen-prevalent auditory stimuli would provide a greater distraction – and thus, cause decreased retention of information – compared to the presence of neutral (i.e., non-pathogen-related) auditory stimuli. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions – the control condition, the <i>neutral sound</i> condition, or the <i>pathogen sound</i> condition. Participants in the <i>neutral sound</i> and the <i>pathogen sound</i> conditions heard various distracting sounds during a lecture video and while answering quiz questions related to the lecture. The neutral sounds consisted of sounds that were not indicative of pathogen-prevalence – keys jingling, papers shuffling, and a backpack zipper being zipped. The pathogen sounds consisted of coughing and sniffling. Participants in the control condition did not hear any distracting sounds. Participants exposed to pathogen-prevalent distracting sounds performed significantly worse on the statistics quiz compared to the control group, though their performance was only marginally lower than that of participants in the neutral sound condition. While this suggests a potential effect of pathogen-related auditory distractions on cognitive performance, further research is needed to confirm and contextualize these findings.</p>