A cognitive psychologist investigated the impact of auditory distraction during encoding on the accuracy of facial recognition memory.
She recruited a volunteer sample of 60 participants from a local library. She showed all participants a slideshow of 15 target faces.
After viewing the slideshow in each condition, participants completed a questionnaire consisting of 30 closed questions about the physical features of the target faces (e.g., "Did the third individual have blue eyes?").
The median number of correct and incorrect answers for each condition was calculated. The results are shown in Table 1.
Table 1 The median number of correct and incorrect answers under both distraction conditions
| High-distraction condition | Low-distraction condition | |
|---|---|---|
| The median number of correct answers | 11 | 22 |
| The median number of incorrect answers | 19 | 8 |
The psychologist used closed questions on the questionnaire.
Explain one reason why it might have been better to use open questions rather than closed questions in this study.
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