The concept of beer goggles, the belief that alcohol helps make people more attractive, is no stranger to lads on a stag weekend, who often wake up to the thought that they should have gone to specsavers.
However, a British researcher has been applying science to the myth in an attempt to make sense of it.
Professor Lewis Halsey tested the theory during a trips to a local pub near his office at Roehampton University – not a bad job eh.
Halsey and two colleagues interviewed students, some of whom had been drinking, some of whom were sober. They divided the group with a breathalyzer and tested them with a photo of the same person, but in one the picture had been slightly distorted to make the face less symmetrical.
Halsey found that as we drink, we lose our ability to perceive asymmetry, so as you get drunk you fail to see symmetrical imperfections.
“All people have some asymmetry,” said Halsey. “Therefore they’re all going to tend to look more symmetrical to people who are drunk, because they can’t see the asymmetry, and therefore they’re going to tend to look a little bit more attractive.”
Simple.
By Rob Hogley
