Fed2 Star - the newsletter for the space trading game Federation 2

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by ibgames

EARTHDATE: November 3, 2013

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REAL LIFE NEWS: MUSIC AND DRINK

by Hazed

A few weeks ago I told you how the colour of the wine, and the shape of the glass, affects how much we pour. Now it turns out that there’s something else that can influence the amount we drink: music.

It turns out that when there is music playing, both men and women find it hard to gauge the strength of drinks, wine tastes sweeter and women drink faster.

A trio of studies carried out at the University of Portsmouth in the UK experimented on students, who I am sure were delighted to be given free booze all in the name of science.

The first study looked at whether background distractions could change the way people perceive alcohol. They thought that people commonly drink more when it’s noisy, so set out to prove it. You can read the details of exactly how they did that at the source link below. They discovered that background music altered the sweet/bitter perception of alcohol and impaired the ability to gauge its strength.

They also looked at the volume of music and discovered it doesn’t make much difference whether it’s loud or soft – it is just as distracting either way.

The third study looked at how music impacted the speed at which the participants drank, and found that those listening to music knocked the booze back faster than those who drank in silence. The tempo of the music made no difference.

I am sure those that run clubs and bars will be fascinated to read this and will conclude that they can sell more alcohol if they play music. But they probably already knew this.

I would sound a word of caution however: it’s a bit dodgy to draw conclusion about behaviour when your test subjects are all students. Anyone who remembers their youth will realise that students do not necessarily behave in the same way as adults do – in fact it’s recently been established the changes in the brain that come with adolescence do not settle down until a person is in their mid-twenties! (Thanks to Alan for reminding me of this.)

Source: http://www.medicaldaily.com/music-makes-women-drink-faster-obscuring-strength-alcohol-260163

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