3 Lemmens, P. M. C. Bussemakers, M. P. de Haan, A. 2001 Hiipakka, J. and Zacharov, N. and Takala, T. Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Auditory Display (ICAD2001) Espoo, Finland Laboratory of Acoustics and Audio Signal Processing and the Telecommunications Software and Multimedia Laboratory, Helsinki University of Technology 117-125 This paper presents an overview of work on the effects of earcons and auditory icons on picture categorization and the results of 2 new experiments. The general finding of the experiments is that earcons have an inhibitory effect on picture categorization whereas auditory icons, in general, have a facilitating effect. These findings will be discussed and related to the theoretical framework of perceptual versus conceptual categorization. Proceedings/2001/LemmensBussenmakers2001.pdf