The temporo-parietal association cortex around the caudal end of the Sylvian fissure was studied with the single cell recording technique in three awake behaving Macaca speciosa-monkeys. Of the 197 cells isolated, 5% were active only during the monkey's own movements, mostly during head rotation, and 95% were responsive to sensory stimulation: 54% to auditory stimuli, 24% to somatosensory stimuli, 13% to both of these and 4% to visual stimuli. Some cells, classified as responsive to somatosensory stimuli, were activated only by passive rotation of the head on the cervical axis; it is possible that they were driven by vestibular stimuli. Half of the cells were activated by stimuli on both sides of the monkey, and almost all the rest, only by stimuli on the side contralateral to the hemisphere recorded. Of the acoustically drivable cells, 95% responded to natural sounds, such as, rubbing hands together, rustle of clothes, clicks or jingles (sounds with noise spectrum and rapid intensity transitions). Most of these neurons were also examined with pure tones of 0.2-20 kHz: various inhibitory or excitatory responses were elicited in half of them, usually over a wide range of frequencies. The responses of most acoustically drivable cells (62%) depended on the location of the sound source with reference to the monkey's head so that the maximal response was elicited by sounds with a certain angle of incidence, usually on the contralateral side. The present results suggest that the area studied participates in the analysis of the temporal pattern of a sound, the location of the sound source and in spatial control of head movements.

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The expression of "naming," "commanding," "angry," "frightened," "pleading," "astonished," "satisfied," "admiring," "scornful," and "sad" was with the word [saara] spoken by 12 subjects. Using the same connotations, the 120 utterances were categorized by 73 listeners. Most samples were agreed on by 50%-99% of the judges. Most samples of "astonished," "angry," "frightened," and "commanding" were judged as intended, while "pleading" was often confused with "sad," and "content" with "admiring." Acoustic differences between the categories were examined for F0, duration, and sound pressure; spectral features of [aa] were visualized with the self-organizing map of Kohonen. Most intraspeaker variation of mean F0, FO range, sound pressure, and duration took place during the [aa] segment. Peak sound pressure, mean FO, and spectral energy distribution of [aa] differentiated among "commanding," "angry," "frightened," "naming," and "sad.". Specific intonations of the [aa] segment were encountered for "astonished," "scornful," and "pleading.". The best-conveyed "admiring" samples were distinguished from "content" by spectral cues for a breathy voice quality.

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