An intoxicating illusion

By ANGELA GREGORY

Forget about Claytons, the drink you have when you don't have a drink.

Try tonic water instead.

A Victoria University research project, set in a room which resembled a bar and using drinks conveying a waft of vodka, convinced dozens of students that they were getting drunk when they actually were sober.

Psychologist Dr Maryanne Garry and PhD student Seema Assefi said the study also provided new insights into how human memory works.

Dr Garry said some of the students had shown physical signs of intoxication although they were technically cold sober.

"Men flirted with the women researchers which was quite funny and the women became more giggly ... the typical things you see in drinking situations."

When told they had been duped, many of the students - who had consumed between two to four drinks depending on body weight - were amazed that they had received only plain tonic.

Dr Garry said they insisted they had felt drunk at the time.

For the study, 148 undergraduate students were split into two groups. Half the students were told they were getting a vodka tonic and the rest that they were getting only tonic water.

In reality, everyone was getting plain tonic.

Dr Garry said the deception was set up by rimming glasses with limes dunked in vodka, which created the smell of alcohol and a stinging effect on lips.

The research took place in a room equipped with bartenders, Absolut vodka bottles, tonic bottles and glasses to create a bar-like atmosphere.

Flat tonic water was poured from sealed vodka bottles.

Dr Garry said previous research had similarly shown people could be conned into drunken behaviour.

But this research was the first to show that memories could also be made worse simply from the perception of being slightly intoxicated.

Once the students had consumed their drinks, they watched slides depicting a crime.

The participants then read a summary of the crime riddled with misleading information.

Dr Garry said the study subjects who believed they had consumed alcohol were more swayed by misleading post-event information than those who were told they were drinking plain tonic water.

"We found people who thought they were intoxicated were more suggestible and made worse eyewitnesses in comparison with those who thought they were sober."

The research will appear in Psychological Science, ranked among the top 10 general psychology journals for impact on the field by the Institute for Scientific Information.