Loud music leads to heavierdrinking, psychologist claims

Thu 15th Dec, 2011 in International News

Groundbreaking research conducted at the University of Portsmouth has revealed that loud music makes alcohol taste sweeter, leasing you to drink more and at a faster rate.

Psychologist, and obvious Nobel Prize candidate, Dr Lorenzo Stafford claims that his study shows that alcoholic drinks taste sweeter when loud music is playing and that this also makes it hard for people to work out how much they are drinking. Stafford reasons that “since humans have an innate preference for sweetness, these findings offer a plausible explanation as to why people consume more alcohol in noisy environments.”

The study featured just 80 participants – 69 females and 11 males aged between 18 and 28 – who were asked to rate a selection of various alcoholic drinks on the basis of alcohol strength, sweetness and bitterness. Participants were also given one of four different levels of distraction, from no distraction to “loud club-type music”.

According to Stafford, his 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… 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.”

So remember this festive season not to turn the music up too loud and drink responsibly.