THE EFFECT OF NEIGHBORHOOD ON THE RETENTION OF LEXICAL ITEMS

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 English as foreign language (EFL) learners. The participants, advanced second English learners, were chosen based on the Oxford Placement Test. The participants completed a lexical decision task that was designed and performed by computer software. The 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 Interactive Activation and Competition (IAC) and Dual Route Cascade (DRC) model of word recognition.