Conscious and unconscious influences of memory for object location.

The process-dissociation procedure was used to investigate conscious and unconscious influences of memory for object location. In two experiments, subjects worked with drawings of household objects and rooms of a house depicted on a computer monitor to simulate placing objects in various locations. Memory for object locations was tested by having subjects search for those objects. A double dissociation was obtained between estimates of conscious and unconscious influences of memory computed from equations that assumed independence between these two influences: Age-related differences were found in the estimate of conscious influences, but not in the estimate of unconscious influences, whereas manipulation of habit strength affected the unconscious estimate, but not the conscious estimate. These results were closely fit by a multinomial model assuming independence between conscious and unconscious influences of memory.