THE NEURAL BASIS for sound localization
has been examined with single-unit techniques
at various levels of the auditory
pathway (superior olive (19, 22, 23, 31, 35,
40), lateral lemniscus (11 ), inferior colliculus
(9, 15, 20, 34, 38), medial geniculate (l,
2, 6), and auditory cortex (12, 24)). The
general conclusion to be drawn from these
studies is that there are neurons sensitive
to features of acoustic signals relevant for
localization including interaural intensity,
time, and phase differences at all levels of
the pathway. We have undertaken a singleunit
analysis of binaural processes at the
medial geniculate in the squirrel monkey,
an animal for which we have also obtained
psychophysical measures of binaural performance
on a lateralization task (14) using