Spatial separation improves vowel discrimination in noise. A, Performance of each ferret (n = 6) in spatially separated or colocated noise in control conditions across SNR. Scatter plots indicate performance across bootstrap resampling (n = 1000 iterations) with mean performance shown by markers. B, Control performance discriminating vowels in clean conditions (i.e., without noise) versus colocated noise. C, Performance of 2 ferrets during cooling, when discriminating vowels in spatially separated or colocated noise. D, Performance during cooling when discriminating vowels in clean conditions versus colocated noise. E, Mixed-effect model fit (lines) and observed performance (markers) versus SNR discriminating vowels in colocated and spatially separated noise.