New research has
revealed that the smell of alcohol makes it harder for people to control
their behavior.
Here is another of the interesting studies on how alcohol effects us. This time it is the smell of alcohol. I know that when I visit a distillery the smell of alcohol makes me very happy, but I love the smell of rum anyway. This is an interesting read.
Researchers at Lancashire’s
Edge Hill University found that during a computer-based study the smell of
alcohol interfered with people’s ability to refrain from a particular
behavior. Participants
wore face masks that were pre-treated with either alcohol or a
non-alcoholic citrus solution.
They were
then presented with two picture sets – one containing the alphabet, the other
made up of bar-related images – and were asked to press a button when either
the letter K or a picture of a beer bottle appeared on their screen. The scientists measured the amount of
times the participants incorrectly pressed a button, raising a ‘false alarm’,
which indicated a decrease in the person’s ability to inhibit their
behavior.
The
number of false alarms were “significantly higher” in participants who were
wearing the alcohol treated mask, and the effect was the same for both
alcohol and non-alcohol-related visual cues. A
statement from the study reads: “The current findings support the findings of
previous research that exposure to alcohol-related stimuli results in reduced
accuracy in tasks requiring inhibitory control.
“Overall,
this research offers an original insight into the importance of acknowledging
olfactory alcohol cues in developing a comprehensive understanding of
alcohol-related behavior. Context-related reductions in inhibitory control may
lead to increases in consumption, or to relapse in abstinence users”
The study, called Smells like inhibition: The effects of olfactory and visual
alcohol cues on inhibitory control was published
in the journal Psychopharmacology.
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