Fig. 1.

Relative localisation behaviour and performance. a Ferrets were trained to report the location of a target sound relative to a preceding reference, with target and reference sounds originating from two speakers separated by 30° (main speaker locations indicated). Ferrets reported the relative location of the target at a left (L) or right (R) response spout (positioned at ± 90°). b Ferrets were required to maintain contact with the central start spout (S) for a pre-stimulus hold time (500–1500 ms) before the reference sound (150 ms, shown here at 45°) was presented and remain there until at least halfway through the target sound (150 ms, here at 15°) before responding. c Schematic showing the spectrum of each of the stimulus paradigms. d Mean performance across all trials of ferrets in four different conditions, in which the stimuli were broadband noise (BBN), low-pass filtered noise (<1 kHz, LPN), bandpass filtered noise (1/6 octave about 15 kHz, BPN) and high-pass filtered noise (>3 kHz, HPN). All animals performed the task above chance in each condition (binomial test, p < 0.001)