To determine to what extent listeners respond to the vocal content of "how" of spoken messages, this study investigated the effects that the two vocal variables or rate (speed) and intensity (loudness) had on the responses made by 445 English-speaking high school students to messages spoken in an unfamiliar tongue. The basic messages were recorded in Marathi, a language used in western India, and were mechanically manipulated to combine various levels of intensity and rate--loud-fast, loud-normal, loud-slow, medium-fast, medium-normal, medium-slow, soft-fast, soft-normal, and soft-slow. The subjects, having been divided into nine groups, listened to a recording of the basic message and then of one appropriate experimental message, which they were asked to rate on a semantic-differential type scale according to three dimensions of effect--i.e., evaluation, strength, and activity. Results indicated, in general, that slower and softer messages were more favorably evaluated and were considered more "forceful" than other combinations, but that slower and medium intensity messages were considered most "dynamic." (Author/JM)