The present study set out to discover how Iranian learners of the English language learn L2 vocabulary through laptop based delivery of multimodal items. To that end, learners were placed into four different short term memory (STM) ability groups, using Visual and Verbal Short Term Memory Test. Upon treatment, they were evaluated on their recognition and recall of vocabulary items. The results indicated that except for low visual and low verbal group, the other three groups treated with vocabulary items with pictorial or written annotations performed significantly better on the tests. The results suggest considering learners’ cognitive styles in teaching vocabulary. © 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd.