phase cancellation

[mark sottilaro <msottila@mailbox.syr.edu>]

I've been having a disagreement with a friend of mine as to the nature
of hearing perception and the phase cancellation of sound waves.  I'm
pretty sure that phase cancellation is the perception of the physical
phenomena of the cancellation (or addition) of vibratory acoustic energy
and that if each ear could be isolated, as in a headphone situation, and
identical wave forms, 180¡ out of phase, fed into each ear would NOT
cancel psychoacoustically, as they do not share the same acoustic
environment.  If anyone could point me to somewhere on the web that
addresses this subject, I'd appreciate it.  I've actually tried the
experiment, using computer generated tones and it worked, but he would
not except my results, as to the sometimes iffy nature of audio amps.

Thanks

Mark