The human ear is largely insensitive to signal phase

Evidence

However, although the time domain waveform is radically different the fre­ quency domain is very similar, as the amplitudes are identical—only the phase of some of the harmonics has changed. … Interestingly, in many cases, the resulting wave is perceived as sounding the same, even though the waveform is different. This is because the ear, as we will see later, appears to be less sensitive to the phase of the individual fre­ quency compared with the relative amplitudes. However, if the phase changes are extreme enough we can hear a difference (see Schroeder, 1975). — David Howard, Jamie Angus, coustics and Psychoacoustics, 451

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to later perceptual-auditory treatment of what the ear actually encodes — a foundational fact for psychoacoustic claims about why time-domain and frequency-domain representations diverge. — connects to: The power spectrum is blind to the relative phase of a sound’s components; The ear is far less sensitive to phase than to amplitude of frequency components; The ear resolves low-frequency direction by measuring phase shift — David Howard, Jamie Angus, coustics and Psychoacoustics, 712 (+6 more)
• corroborated: 4 independent passages support this claim — David Howard, Jamie Angus, coustics and Psychoacoustics, 451

Broader Connections

• The ear is far less sensitive to phase than to amplitude of frequency components #corroborates (0.98)
• The ear cannot sense a tone’s absolute phase but does sense phase differences. #qualifies (0.85)
• The ear resolves low-frequency direction by measuring phase shift #qualifies (0.82) — David Howard, Jamie Angus, coustics and Psychoacoustics, 712
• Reversing a tone’s phase in one ear lowers its detection threshold in noise #contradicts (0.75)