We investigated the disturbance effects of environmental stimuli, typical of those which pigs might experience under farm conditions, on the spatial memory abilities of domestic pigs, Sus scrofa. Ten male pigs were trained to perform a win-shift foraging task in an eight-arm radial maze. Each day, they individually entered the maze to search for food randomly located in four of the eight arms (search). After finding and eating the food, they were returned to their home pens for a retention interval of 10 min, and then allowed back into the maze to search for food placed in the four previously unbaited arms (relocation). Once the pigs had reached a criterion level of choice accuracy in relocation trials, various treatments were presented during the retention interval, and subsequent choice accuracy was measured. Exploration of a novel environment and introduction to an unfamiliar pig during the retention interval resulted in poorer performance in relocation trials as compared to non-disturbed control, but did not reduce choice accuracy to that of a random searcher. However, performance following confinement within the centre of the maze did not depart from random behaviour. This treatment presented the animals with task-related stimuli, which may have interfered directly with information stored in memory. Restraint within a weigh crate produced the most aroused and agitated behaviour in the animals, but resulted in negligible disruption to the memory of food sites. During this treatment, unlike the other treatments, there was no obvious focus to the animals' attention, suggesting that `attention-shifting' during a retention interval may affect memory storage or consolidation. Removal of some visual cues at the ends of each arm did not disrupt performance. This indicates that if pigs oriented themselves by visual cues, they did so using a wider range of cues than those visible through the ends of each arm.