Jon Holato

We’re all familiar with the beer goggle phenomenon. You know, you go to a bar and have a few liquor drinks, next thing you know you’re playing tonsil-hockey with that man/woman you previously found horrifically unattractive.

Scientists at St. Andrews University and Glasgow University have been able to show that alcohol actually stimulates the part of the brain that judges facial attractiveness.

In 2002, researchers at St. Andrews University and Glasgow University in Scotland took 80 college students and had half of them drink a “moderate” amount of alcohol — between one and four servings, depending on gender and body weight. The other half, the control group, remained sober. Scientists showed each subject pictures of people of the opposite sex. In all cases — male and female alike — the experimental (tipsy) group rated each picture an average of 25 percent more attractive than the sober group did.

They concluded that the effect could be traced to an area of the brain called the nucleus accumbens, the area that decides how attractive a human being’s face is. When you look at someone you find attractive your brain fires neutrons in this area that stimulate you. Coincidentally, alcohol also stimulates this area of the brain and makes the neutrons fire.

Researchers at Manchester University came up with a mathematical formula in 2005 to calculate the effect that beer goggles would have on a given individual. They contested that alcohol isn’t the only factor that affects the drunken perception of beauty. Other factors, they argued, are as follows:

• How brightly lit the area is
• The observer’s eye-sight quality
• The amount of smoke in the air
• The distance of the observer from the observed

Their complete formula is as follows:

β = (An)² x d(S + 1) / √L x (Vo)

Where:

• An is the number of servings of alcohol
• S is the smokiness of the area on a scale of 0 - 10
• L is the lighting level of the area, measured in candelas per square meter, in which 150 is normal room lightning
• Vo is Snellen visual acuity, in which 6/6 is normal and 6/12 is the lower limit at which someone is able to drive
• d is the distance between the observer and the observed, measured in meters

When β = 1, the individual is seeing everyone as he or she would see them in a sober state. But if the person drinking reaches 100+, everybody in the room becomes Angelina Jolie or Brad Pitt.