Glass shape influences how quickly we down alcohol

How quickly you consume down an alcoholic drink may depend on the shape of the glass you're drinking from, a new study has suggested.

For the study, Dr Angela Attwood and colleagues from Bristol's School of Experimental Psychology recruited 160 social drinkers aged 18-40 with no history of alcoholism to attend two experimental sessions.

During one session they were asked to drink either lager or a non-alcoholic soft drink from either a straight-sided glass or a curved 'beer flute'.

They found that the participants were almost twice as slow when drinking alcohol from the straight-sided glass as compared to the curved glass.

However, there was no difference in drinking rates from the glasses when the drink was non-alcoholic.

The researchers suggest that the reason for this may be because it is more difficult to accurately judge the halfway point of shaped glasses. As a result, drinkers are less able to gauge how much they have consumed.

In order to test this, participants attended another session in which they completed a computer task that presented numerous pictures of the two glasses containing varying volumes of liquid.

By asking participants to judge whether the glass was more or less than half full, the researchers were able to show that there was greater error in accurately judging the halfway point of the curved glass.

Importantly, the degree of this error seemed to be associated with the speed of drinking – the participants who tended to show the greatest error in their halfway judgments tended to show the greatest changes in drinking rate.

The speed at which an alcoholic beverage is drunk will influence the level of intoxication experienced, and also the number of drinks consumed in a single drinking session.

Therefore, slower drinking rates is likely to have positive impact on the individual and also at a population level.

... contd.

ALSO READ

Brain can distinguish between types of laughter

Parental addictions tied to depression in kids later

Mangoes are good for health, but don't eat too many

A hearty relationship