Listeners were presented a randomized list of /bVs/, /dVs/, and /gVs/ syllables produced by two male talkers and were instructed to press a response key immediately upon recognizing a particular initial stop consonant. Three groups of 12 subjects were monitored for /b/, /d/, and /g/, respectively. The test syllables contained 10 English monophthongs varying substantially in intrinsic duration. Reaction times to the initial consonants correlated positively with the duration of the following vowels. For both talkers' syllables, this correlation was higher for initial /d/ and /g/ (withrvalues ranging from 0.41–0.67) than for initial /b/ (withrvalues ranging from 0.28–0.39). These results support the view that consonant recognition is vowel dependent and, specifically, that a certain proportion of the vowel formant trajectory must be processed before consonants can be reliably decoded. [Work supported by NICHHD.]