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

法國研究人員于上周五稱，酒吧里播放的音樂越響，客人們喝酒的速度會越快。

該項在《酗酒：臨床與試驗性研究》期刊上發表的研究發現，酒吧里的音樂音量越大，顧客喝酒的速度越快，他們喝一杯啤酒平均所用的時間比正常情況下快三分鐘。

為了測量音樂音量對于飲酒的實際影響，研究小組在三個周六對兩家酒吧進行了夜訪，觀察對象是40位年齡在18歲至25歲之間的男性顧客。

研究負責人、法國南布列塔尼大學的行為科學研究人員尼古拉斯•蓋岡在一份聲明中說：“我們已經發現，酒吧里播放的背景音樂對于顧客飲酒量的增加有一定影響。”

在酒吧老板的幫助下，研究人員對酒吧音樂的音量大小進行了調節，并記錄了顧客在不同音量環境下的飲酒量和飲酒速度。不過這些顧客并不知道有人在觀察他們。

蓋岡發現，較響的音樂會促進顧客的飲酒消費，顧客所點的酒類平均數量從2.6杯上升到了3.4杯。此外，他們喝一杯啤酒平均所用的時間從14.51分鐘減少到了11.45分鐘。

研究人員承認，該研究存在一定的局限性，比如，研究范圍較小，并不適用于每家酒吧。

研究人員稱，目前還不清楚為什么較響的音樂會促進顧客的飲酒量，但他們說這可能是因為在太吵的環境里交談比較困難，所以客人們只能多喝酒少說話。

Vocabulary: 

patron: 顧客