Study Shows Loud Music Increases Alcohol Consumption
Thursday, 15 December 2011
Written by Elliott Batte
A study at the University of Plymouth has concluded that loud music causes drinkers to down more pints and beer to taste sweeter than usual, according to Dr Lorenzo Stafford.
The experiment, probably one of the most fun and least stressful uni projects ever recorded, showed that in places where there was excessively loud music, people tended to drink more and found it harder to keep track of exactly how much alcohol they had consumed. Interestingly, he also found that the taste of the beers became sweeter – and, as humans naturally favour sweeter tastes, that meant that drinkers would end up drinking more beer.
The experiment involved taking 80 regular drinkers between the ages of 18-28, and getting them to rank a variety of different drinks based on their taste and how strong they believed them to be. He also altered the volume of the music in the background, helping him come to the conclusion that loud music WILL get you that little bit drunker.
“Since humans have an innate preference for sweetness,” Dr Stafford explained to the Press Association, “these findings offer a plausible explanation as to why people consume more alcohol in noisy environments. It also has implications for bars, the drinks industry and local authorities.
“The study found that sweetness perception of alcohol was significantly higher in the music compared to control and other distracting conditions, which is a novel finding and to our knowledge, not seen previously.
“This is an interesting finding as we might have expected the music, in addition to repeating a news story, to exert a more distracting effect on taste judgment. It appears that our primary sense of taste is somewhat immune to very distracting conditions, but is indeed influenced by music alone.
"Researching multi-sensory perception is a growing field of study and an interesting area to explore. Although individuals might well expect to consume more alcohol in club type environments anyway, it is important they understand how environment can potentially influence over-consumption and act accordingly.”
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