Automatic acquisition for location: Mapping the boundary conditions

Hasher and Zacks (1979) hypothesized that the acquisition of location information was an automatic process. An examination of each of the five criteria required for a process to be considered automatic was conducted using a methodology that had previously supported this hypothesis. This methodology was modified to restrict the amount of time available for acquisition of location information and to include a test of appearance information acquisition. Location acquisition was found to be no higher than chance under incidental learning conditions, despite higher than chance appearance acquisition under the same learning conditions. Location acquisition was also positively influenced by instruction to remember location and by practice. Location acquisition was negatively impacted by the presence of an effortful concurrent task. While location acquisition was correlated with neither age nor any of the measured individual characteristics, these characteristics were also not correlated with appearance acquisition. As three of the five criteria were not met for location acquisition, it is concluded that location acquisition is not an automatic process.