Loud music makes customers drink faster

Customers of bars that play loud music drink more quickly and in fewer gulps, French researchers said on Friday.

Their study, published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, found that turning up the music spurred drinkers to down a glass of beer about three minutes more quickly.

To gauge the effect of sound levels on drinking, the team spent three Saturday nights visiting two bars, where they observed 40 men aged between 18 and 25 drinking beer.

"We have shown that environmental music played in a bar is associated with an increase in drinking," Nicolas Gueguen, a behavioural sciences researcher at the University of Southern Brittany in France, who led the study, said in a statement.

With help from the bars' owners, the team turned the music up and down and then recorded how much and how fast people drank. The men did not know they were being observed.

Louder music spurred more consumption, with the average number of drinks ordered by patrons rising to 3.4 drinks from 2.6 drinks, Gueguen found. The time taken to drink a beer fell to an average 11.45 minutes from 14.51 minutes.

The researchers acknowledged some limitations to their study, for example that the experiment was on a small scale and could not be applied to every bar.

They said it was not clear why louder music appeared to increase alcohol consumption but said it might make conversation more difficult, forcing people to drink more and talk less.

法国研究人员于上周五称，酒吧里播放的音乐越响，客人们喝酒的速度会越快。

该项在《酗酒：临床与试验性研究》期刊上发表的研究发现，酒吧里的音乐音量越大，顾客喝酒的速度越快，他们喝一杯啤酒平均所用的时间比正常情况下快三分钟。

为了测量音乐音量对于饮酒的实际影响，研究小组在三个周六对两家酒吧进行了夜访，观察对象是40位年龄在18岁至25岁之间的男性顾客。

研究负责人、法国南布列塔尼大学的行为科学研究人员尼古拉斯•盖冈在一份声明中说：“我们已经发现，酒吧里播放的背景音乐对于顾客饮酒量的增加有一定影响。”

在酒吧老板的帮助下，研究人员对酒吧音乐的音量大小进行了调节，并记录了顾客在不同音量环境下的饮酒量和饮酒速度。不过这些顾客并不知道有人在观察他们。

盖冈发现，较响的音乐会促进顾客的饮酒消费，顾客所点的酒类平均数量从2.6杯上升到了3.4杯。此外，他们喝一杯啤酒平均所用的时间从14.51分钟减少到了11.45分钟。

研究人员承认，该研究存在一定的局限性，比如，研究范围较小，并不适用于每家酒吧。

研究人员称，目前还不清楚为什么较响的音乐会促进顾客的饮酒量，但他们说这可能是因为在太吵的环境里交谈比较困难，所以客人们只能多喝酒少说话。

Vocabulary:

patron: 顾客