09 June 2010

Scientists prove that beer goggles exist!

According to Discovery Online scientists have finally proven that strangers indeed look sexier to people when they booze.

A new study has found that drunk students were up to 10% more likely to fall for less attractive people than those who were sober. It showed the more they drank, the less likely they were to recognise finer details on people’s faces.

A team of psychologists found 64 students of varying levels of drunkenness in bars at Roehampton University, London. They were asked to judge 20 photos of men and women aged 18 to 25. One face in each pair was digitally enhanced to make it more symmetrical — and therefore more attractive.

Thirty six more sober students had a 67% success rate in choosing the symmetrical face. But 28 intoxicated students (who had drunk ten or more units) chose the more symmetrical face in just 58% of cases.

“Drunk students were less good at noticing symmetrical faces and cared less about the defects”, said Lewis Halsey, who led the study.

Excellent news! This is proof positive that science constantly strives to improve humanity....

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

The trouble with getting old(ish) is that you start to remember the first time things were discovered. I read pretty much exactly this result in the New Scientist about 20 years ago. Do researchers nowadays (and those who vet funding bids) never bother to check up on the published record? And that's another thing about getting old(ish) - you start saying sentences that run: "Do xxxx nowadays never bother to ...." I'm only 55 but Grumpdon and Curmudgeonlyness are fitting my shoulders like a favourite old cardigan (Oh, though I've not reached the cardigan stage yet). Also, returning to topic, you start realising that every woman under 40 looks good before even the first beer.

Anonymous said...

"Grumpdon" sounds like a town (and perhaps one I should move to). I meant Grumpdom (which is still not a proper word, but it's what I meant.

Claude said...

Dear Andrew-Grumpdom - I've said, somewhere, sometimes, somehow, that by the time you were 5, you were already 55. I repeat it here with warm friendship, a wink, and laughter.

Dear Jams- When you reach my age, you don't want to meet sober men. Let them drink beer galore. The more they drink, the less wrinkles I have. Cheers!

Anonymous said...

Ah, dear Claude(ia). Is there a mathematical formula? At the age that you have at times revealed you have reached... how many beers would a young man need to take? Is that an unchivalrous question? Sorry. But I ask it with, to borrow your phrase, "warm friendship, a wink and laughter." Or I suppose, just this once, I could have just added ;)

Nevin said...

Claudia, you made me laugh!!!

I say: Don't drink alcohol, smoke pot... :) You will focus on the inner beauty...

Claude said...

Dear Andrew-Curmudgeon - I would need quite a few drinks myself to look twice at anyone over 50. Men get older much faster than women. It's not so much their wrinkles that would bother me, but the irritable nature which seems to permeate the personality of ageing Romeos.
Sent with as many ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) as needed...

Dear Nevin - Very good advise.:)
Though I do find that a few glasses of good French wine have the effect of improving my environment and softening my disposition. It makes me far less demanding about physical and inner beauty. Mine, and the one of others. ;-)
Maybe the experiment posted by Jams was truly justified.:)))))

susan said...

That goes far to explain some of those I woke up next to back in the dawn of my own time.

CalumCarr said...

I don't know about "strangers indeed look sexier to people when they booze but the principle applies to basins and buckets.

Many are the times that I have gone to bed, after a wheen of pints, and hugged a basin or bucket as I attempted to fall asleep on my spinning bed.

Claude said...

Calum - LOL.

James Higham said...

I can prove it. This student and I [also a student] once had a few too many and certain things occurred on the beach. Next morning she looked at me and me at her and we both screamed and ran away.

jams o donnell said...

Bravo one and all!