The conclusion belongs to a new scientific investigation

Sep 1, 2012 08:48 GMT  ·  By
Curved glasses make it harder for people to determine how much they've had to drink
   Curved glasses make it harder for people to determine how much they've had to drink

One possible way of reducing the high incidence of public drunkenness could be to change the shape of glass from which people drink, researchers at the University of Bristol, in the UK, write in the latest issue of the peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE.

Scientists at the UB School of Experimental Psychology, led by investigator Dr. Angela Attwood, asked a group of 160 individuals with no prior history of alcoholism to take part in two experiments. The people in the test group were aged 18 through 40.

The hypothesis the team started with was that the shape of the glasses we use dictates the speed at which we consume alcohol, therefore favoring public intoxication. The scientists then went on to devise experiments meant to infirm or confirm their idea.

During one of the tests, participants were asked to drink a lager of a soft drink (non-alcoholic), from either a curved so-called beer flute, or a straight-sided glass. In the case of the non-alcoholic beverage, people drank at the same speed from both glasses.

However, when the test subjects consumed lager, they did so considerably faster when drinking from the curved glass, than from the straight-sided one. UB experts believe that people have a harder time accurately judging the location of the halfway point of shaped glasses, as opposed to straight ones.

In order to test this, they set up a second experiment, where the participants were asked to judge how full glasses of various shapes were, by looking at a computer screen. It was found that the greatest estimation errors occurred when the test subjects looked at curved glasses.

“Due to the personal and societal harms associated with heavy bouts of drinking, there has been a lot of recent interest in alcohol control strategies. While many people drink alcohol responsibly, it is not difficult to have 'one too many' and become intoxicated,” Dr. Attwood says.

“Because of the negative effects alcohol has on decision making and control of behavior, this opens us up to a number of risks,” she goes on to say. The newly-published PLoS ONE paper she authored is called “Glass shape influences consumption rate for alcoholic beverages.”

"People often talk of 'pacing themselves' when drinking alcohol as a means of controlling levels of drunkenness, and I think the important point to take from our research is that the ability to pace effectively may be compromised when drinking from certain types of glasses,” she concludes.