Have a personal or library account? Click to login
ChatGPT Relies More Heavily on Consonants Than on Vowels to Recognize Words Cover

ChatGPT Relies More Heavily on Consonants Than on Vowels to Recognize Words

Open Access
|Feb 2026

Figures & Tables

Table 1

Examples of English target words and non-words. Non-words had either one consonant or one vowel change.

TARGETC CHANGEV CHANGE
astronautasgronautastrinaut
chocolatechocoratechocolite
elegantelegartelegunt
fatherfathegfathor
imaginativeimapinativeimagunative
magicmagilmagec
obsoleteobdoleteobsilete
riverrivesrivur
understandundepstandundorstand
zebrazetrazebru
joc-9-1-487-g1.png
Figure 1

Mean percentage (and individual data points) of trials in which ChatGPT choose non-words that kept the consonantal frame over non-words that kept the vowel frame as more similar to a target word in both English and Spanish. Dotted line is chance level.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/joc.487 | Journal eISSN: 2514-4820
Language: English
Submitted on: Nov 11, 2025
|
Accepted on: Jan 22, 2026
|
Published on: Feb 9, 2026
Published by: Ubiquity Press
In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services
Publication frequency: 1 issue per year

© 2026 Toro Juan Manuel, published by Ubiquity Press
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.