In spoken word recognition, consonants play a more important role than vowels in identifying words. Previous research has shown a consonant superiority effect, where individuals are more likely to

change vowels than consonants when reconstructing nonwords into real words. In the presence of background noise, vowels tend to be better recognized than consonants, which are more susceptible to

disruption. This study investigates how two types of background noise (babble noise and white noise), influence the role of vowels and consonants during a non-word reconstruction task. It was 

hypothesized that noise would shift the reliance of consonants toward vowels, as vowels are expected to be more stable in noisy conditions. Furthermore, it was hypothesized that consonants would 

be more disrupted by babble noise than by white noise, as babble noise involves both informational and energetic masking. Dutch participants (N = 75) between 18-35 years completed an online word 

reconstruction experiment, where they were assigned to either a no noise, white noise, or babble noise condition. The results revealed that under noisy conditions, participants were more likely 

to make consonant changes than vowel changes, suggesting a shift in phoneme prioritization during lexical access. However, the expected greater interference from babble noise on consonant recognition 

was not supported, as no significant differences were found between the two types of noise. These findings offer new insights into phoneme processing, highlighting the flexibility of lexical access and its 

implications for understanding speech perception in noisy environments.

Keywords: consonants, vowels, lexical access, nonword reconstruction, babble noise, white noise