Recently, Verbrugge and Rakerd [Language and Speech 29, 39–57 (1986)] and Strange and Jenkins [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Suppl. 1 82, S82 (1987)] have shown evidence that “silent center” CVC syllables (i.e., syllables wherein only the relatively rapid CV and transition portions are preserved, while the relatively steady‐state midsections are excised) are well‐perceived even when CV and VC portions from different speakers are combined (“hybrid syllables”). This study will present data from analagous experiments with Canadian English, but including both isolated vowels and /bVb/ syllables in an effort to test the degree to which consonantal coarticulation effects (as opposed to vowel‐intrinsic properties) are responsible for the high intelligibility of hybrid syllables. The results obtained will be compared with predictions of the pattern recognition model of Nearey and Assmann [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 80, 1297–1308 (1986)] for Canadian English vowels that exploits vowel‐inherent spectral change.