Neuroscience
If your New Year’s resolution is to drink less, you may find it useful to know that because of perceptual biases, people tend to pour more liquid into short, wide glasses – ‘tumblers’ – than they pour into tall, elongated, ‘highball’ glasses.
Brian Wansink and Koert van Ittersum at Cornell University asked 198 students to pour a shot (44.3 ml) of whiskey, rum, gin or vodka from a full bottle into a glass. The bottles were real, but they actually contained water or tea. The students who poured into short, wide glasses, poured 30 per cent larger shots than the students asked to pour into tall glasses. Moreover, when asked to estimate the capacity of the glasses, the students estimated the tall glass held an average of five per cent more liquid, even though the glasses’ true capacity was actually equivalent. Students who poured into tall glasses were more accurate if they’d been given 10 practice pours with a shot glass, but practice did not improve the accuracy of the students pouring into short, wide glasses.
In a follow-up study, the researchers repeated the procedure with 86 experienced bartenders to see if they too were prone to this bias. Despite their experience, the bartenders poured an average of 20.5 per cent larger shots into short, wide glasses than into tall, slim ones.
The researchers said “If short tumblers lead even bartenders to pour more alcohol than tall highball glasses, the way to better control alcohol consumption is to use tall glasses or to use glasses with the alcohol level marked on them – and to realise that, when alcoholic drinks are served in a short wide glass, two drinks are actually equal to two and a half”.
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Wansink, B. & van Ittersum, K. (2005). Shape of glass and amount of alcohol poured: comparative study of the effect of practice and concentration. BMJ, 331, 1512-1514.
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
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Neuroscience
Beware short, wide glasses
If your New Year’s resolution is to drink less, you may find it useful to know that because of perceptual biases, people tend to pour more liquid into short, wide glasses – ‘tumblers’ – than they pour into tall, elongated, ‘highball’ glasses.
Brian Wansink and Koert van Ittersum at Cornell University asked 198 students to pour a shot (44.3 ml) of whiskey, rum, gin or vodka from a full bottle into a glass. The bottles were real, but they actually contained water or tea. The students who poured into short, wide glasses, poured 30 per cent larger shots than the students asked to pour into tall glasses. Moreover, when asked to estimate the capacity of the glasses, the students estimated the tall glass held an average of five per cent more liquid, even though the glasses’ true capacity was actually equivalent. Students who poured into tall glasses were more accurate if they’d been given 10 practice pours with a shot glass, but practice did not improve the accuracy of the students pouring into short, wide glasses.
In a follow-up study, the researchers repeated the procedure with 86 experienced bartenders to see if they too were prone to this bias. Despite their experience, the bartenders poured an average of 20.5 per cent larger shots into short, wide glasses than into tall, slim ones.
The researchers said “If short tumblers lead even bartenders to pour more alcohol than tall highball glasses, the way to better control alcohol consumption is to use tall glasses or to use glasses with the alcohol level marked on them – and to realise that, when alcoholic drinks are served in a short wide glass, two drinks are actually equal to two and a half”.
___________________________________
Wansink, B. & van Ittersum, K. (2005). Shape of glass and amount of alcohol poured: comparative study of the effect of practice and concentration. BMJ, 331, 1512-1514.
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
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Computing eyewear such as Google Glass can record information far more discreetly than a handheld camera. As a result, privacy concerns have been raised, whether in a bar or changing for the gym. Are users of this tech likely to use their new toys responsibly?...
- What Children Think Of People Who Wear Glasses
Removing his spectacles was part of Clark Kent's metamorphosis from geeky journalist into superhero. With popular symbolism like that, perhaps it's no wonder that Francine Jellesma has found many children endorse negative stereotypes about people...
- My Drunkenness Means You Did It Deliberately
With our brains gently soaked in alcohol we're generally more sociable and relaxed - it's a sedative after all. So why do drunk people seem so prone to aggravation and argument? One reason, say Laurent Bègue and colleagues, is that alcohol exacerbates...
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If your attention is elsewhere you can miss something right in front of your eyes – a phenomenon that’s been dubbed ‘inattentional blindness’. For example, witnesses confronted by an armed attacker sometimes fail to remember anything else about...