One class of phonetic context effects involves durational contrasts: A signal can be perceived as a stop consonant or a glide, depending on the length of the adjacent segment. For example, the syllable [wa] is perceived as [ba]if the steady‐state frequencies corresponding to the vowel are lengthened. Thus the vocalic information affects reported phonetic judgments of the prior consonantal segment. The neural model presented processes consonant–vowel transitions and steady‐state vowel signals by transient and sustained channels. This model predicts the experimental effects of vowel duration, CV transition rate, and frequency extent in identifying [ba] and [wa]. The product of a leaky integrator’s output with the quotient of two linear expressions in the stimulus parameters generates the model’s output. With a single small set of parameters, the model predicts over 99% of the variance in two data sets [J. L. Miller and A. M. Liberman, Percept. Psychophys.25(6), 457–465 (1979); Schwabetal., Percept. Psychophys.29(2), 121–128 (1981)]. It outperforms a number of simple alternative models. Implications for other phonetic distinctions and physiological analogs to the model in monkey cortex are described. [Work supported by AFOSR and ONR.]