A new study conducted by the University of Bristol and the Tobacco and Alcohol Research Group of Bristol in the United Kingdom suggests that the speed at which a person drinks alcohol may be influenced by the shape of the beverage glass.

Researchers led by Dr. Angela Attwood and Ph.D. student David Troy discovered that drinkers are less capable of measuring the amount of alcohol they have consumed when they cannot accurately gauge the halfway point of shaped glasses.

The researchers analyzed data from an experiment involving 160 people, between 18 and 40 years old, who had no prior history of alcohol problems.

The participants were asked to drink beer served in either a curved glass with markings or a curved glass without any markings. The markings represented different measurements on the beverage glass: quarter, half and three quarters.

During the experiment, the researchers separated the participants with abnormally slow drinking times from the rest of the group. The result revealed that people who drank using the marked glasses had a slower pace (10.3 minutes) compared to the ones who drank from the unmarked glasses (9.1 minutes).

The researchers conducted another experiment to find out if the shape of the drinking glass affects the consumption of alcohol. They once again asked a group of 160 people to join two drinking sessions at three different pubs. Some participants were given beer in a curved glass, while the others were given a straight-sided glass to drink from.

The second experiment showed that the people who drank from the straight-sided glass had a 60 percent slower drinking pace than the others who drank from the curved glass.

Attwood and Troy presented their findings on behalf of their colleagues at the British Psychological Society Annual Conference in Liverpool.

Attwood explained that the level of intoxication a person experiences depends on how fast he or she consumes an alcoholic beverage. The speed of drinking can also influence the amount of alcohol the person drinks in a single session.

She said that it is not difficult to have too much alcohol to drink and become intoxicated even though many people try to drink responsibly.

"Our research suggests that small changes such as glass shape and volume markings can help individuals make more accurate judgements of the volume they are drinking and hopefully drinkers will use this information to drink at a slower pace," Attwood said.

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