The relationship between neighborhood and retention of vocabulary

Numerous studies have been carried out to find the relation between neighborhood effect and retention of lexical items. This study was an attempt to find such a relationship among Iranian EFL learners. Participants, advanced second English learners, were chosen based on the Oxford Placement Test. Participants completed a lexical decision task that was designed and performed by a computer software. Results of this study support the idea that English language learners use the same strategies of lexical item retentions as native speakers. The results also support IAC and DRC models of word recognition.