Late reply to the message by R. Parncutt.

[Alexander Galembo <galembo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Richard,

Returning to your thought:

...
>Thus, phase information does not generally carry information that can
reliably aid a listener in identifying sound sources in a reverberant
environment ...


But.
Ecologically, in a reverberant environment, a complex sound with high peak
factor (or high grade of sinphasity) might indicate for the listener that
the source of the sound is close. Generally, the less random phases are,
the closer the source is. If so, phase information is relevant  as a
distance information.

Disagree?

Alex
Alexander Galembo, Ph. D.
NSERC-NATO Science fellow
Acoustics lab, Dept. of Psychology, Queen's University
Kingston ON  K7L3N6
Canada

Tel. (613) 5456000, ext. 5754
Fax (613) 5452499
E-mail: galembo@pavlov.psyc.queensu.ca
URL   :  http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Lab/8779/