Participants searched in a real-environment or interactive three-dimensional virtual-environment open-field search task for four hidden goal locations arranged in a 2 x 2 square configuration in a 5 x 5 grid of raised bins. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two groups: Pattern Only or Cues + Pattern. Participants experienced a Training phase followed by a Testing phase. Visual cues specified the goal locations during Training only for the Cues + Pattern group. Both groups were then tested in the absence of visual cues. Results in both environments indicated that choices were controlled by the spatial configuration of goal locations. However, visual cues during Training facilitated learning of the spatial configuration of the goal locations: in both environments, participants trained with the visual cues made fewer errors during Testing than those trained with the pattern only. Results suggest that spatial pattern learning may not be susceptible to cue-competition effects.