Final answer:
You're likely to quickly locate the square-shaped, red earrings due to the combination of color and shape features making them stand out. This is supported by Treisman's feature integration theory and Gestalt principles such as similarity and proximity.
Step-by-step explanation:
If Treisman's research on attention applies to this task of locating square-shaped, red earrings on a jewelry counter with four kinds of earrings, then you will quickly locate the square-shaped, red earrings because of the combined features of shape and color making them distinctive.
This is due to the feature integration theory, which suggests that when multiple features are combined, they are more easily and rapidly processed by our visual system. This is reinforced by Gestalt principles, such as proximity and similarity, which allow us to group items based on close arrangement or similar attributes, making the red square earrings stand out against the others.
In the case of the study regarding inattentional blindness, individuals who were focused on a specific feature (white or black objects) often missed other stimuli (the red cross), indicating that our attention can fail to recognize items when we are focused elsewhere.
Additionally, top-down processing, being deliberate and under our control, would suggest that if we are specifically looking for square red earrings, we would direct our attention to look for those features and ignore others such as round blue earrings.