Varvara Grankova

Professor Andrew Jarosz of the University of Mississippi and his colleagues conducted an experiment involving 20 men. The subjects drank a cocktail – vodka with cranberry juice – until their blood alcohol level reached the “official” level of intoxication, and then solved word association problems. It turned out that under the influence of alcohol, the problems were solved faster and the number of correct answers was higher than in the sober control group. The scientists came to the conclusion that alcohol helps in solving creative problems.

- Professor Yarosh, defend your idea!

– Sometimes famous writers, artists and composers claim that alcohol helps them create, and some say that they think better under the influence of alcohol. We wanted to check whether these claims correspond to reality. Although the study was small, the hypothesis was fully confirmed.

We asked participants 15 questions from the standard Remote Association Test (RAT). For example, this question: “What word do hide, dollar, and fold have in common?” The answer is banknote. We found that those who had been drinking solved two-thirds more problems in the same amount of time. They were faster at answering questions under a one-minute-per-question time limit, which seems even more surprising.

- So alcohol doesn't slow down mental activity at all?

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– It does slow down. But solving non-standard problems is an area where the main effect of alcohol – weakening self-control – gives a positive result. In tests of this type, it is difficult not to get stuck on the first association that comes to mind, and alcohol helps to fly from one thought to another. The survey showed that, compared to sober participants, those who drank alcohol were 10% more likely to find the answer by “insight” rather than by trying out options. You can come to the word “banknote” by methodically going through all the associations “dollar” that arise. But when the task becomes more complex and the associative links are less obvious, a methodical approach makes you get stuck on the wrong associations. Naturally, in many other areas – from solving math problems to driving a car – sobriety and self-control are extremely important.

– Is it better to brainstorm in a bar than in a meeting room?

– If there is a need for unexpected approaches and creative solutions, a few glasses of wine or a martini cocktail with lunch will not hurt. But do not hang out at the bar for too long. If the blood alcohol level is much higher than 0.8 ppm, you will not be of any use: you are unlikely to cope with the elimination of delusional ideas.

- You brought the blood alcohol level of the subjects to 0.75 ppm. Is this some kind of magic number?

– The task was to exceed the permitted limit. We selected men aged 21 to 30 with the same history of alcohol consumption and asked them not to drink or take medications for 24 hours before the experiment. Four hours before the experiment, we excluded any drinks containing caffeine. First, we gave them a snack (the amount of food depended on the subject’s weight), and then three times at half-hour intervals we gave them a vodka cocktail. The ratio of vodka to juice in the drink was one to three, but people with a higher weight received more cocktail. To determine that the alcohol in the blood was at the target level, we used a regular breathalyzer. I would like to note that in a similar study by Matthias Benedek and his colleagues, the blood alcohol level was increased to only 0.3 ppm, but those who had drunk also coped with the tasks better than those who were sober.

– Is it necessary to drink vodka with cranberry juice? I would prefer red wine.

– This cocktail is most often used in such studies, because it is easy to add any amount of vodka to it. Cranberry juice perfectly masks its taste. By the way, Benedek’s experiment used beer. So, it seems that any drink will do.

0.2 l

According to the World Health Organization, alcohol consumption per capita increases annually worldwide. The reasons are economic and social problems that increase the level of stress in society, and low prices for alcohol in many countries

- And what about drugs?

– I can’t say for sure, but there are studies showing that people with some brain damage cope better with creative tasks. The same as people who are woken up in the REM phase. These results make sense to me, we are also dealing with distraction here. Even when drinking tea, creativity increases, perhaps under the influence of a relaxing ritual. Scientists from Beijing University found that people who drank hot tea created more complex structures from children's construction sets and suggested more creative and unexpected names for cafes than people who drank just hot water.

- Let's get back to alcohol. Could it be that those who drank the cocktail were simply smarter than the others?

– In fact, we tried to equalize these groups by the level of mental activity, namely by the volume of working memory. At the beginning of the experiment, sober, we asked all participants to remember a sequence of words and solve mathematical problems on the computer, and then asked them to repeat the words in the same sequence. We selected people whose results were close and placed them in different groups, so that the average score of both groups on this test was the same.

– You conducted the experiment with young men. Could the results change if you take young women or older people?

- This is the subject of our future research, but I believe that the results will be the same in a group of young women. Perhaps we will get the same result with older people, but we need to take into account the processes that occur in the brain over the years.

– How did the idea for the study come about? From a desire to justify your habit of drinking?

– I’m a fan of craft beer, but I don’t usually drink at work. In fact, my research isn’t about drinking alcohol at all. I’m generally interested in potential ways to improve people’s ability to solve problems. Remember the famous story of Archimedes in the bath who suddenly exclaimed, “Eureka!”? I’ve always been interested in what exactly leads people to these kinds of insights. I was discussing this with my co-author Gregory Colflesh, who was doing research on the effects of alcohol, and with Jennifer Wiley. We decided that this was a possible path to take.

– Have scientists discovered any other benefits of drinking alcohol for our brain?

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– In the article Lost in the Sauce, Michael Sayatt from the University of Pittsburgh says that people under the influence of alcohol are more prone to hypothesizing. This can be useful in some cases and harmful in others. My co-author Gregory got interesting results when he asked subjects to look for differences between two pictures. People who drank alcohol coped with this task better. It seems that the same mechanism is at work here as in our experiment: under the influence of alcohol, a person sees the picture as a whole and finds what catches the eye, rather than getting stuck on the details.

Now I'm planning a new study. The hypothesis is that people speak a foreign language more confidently when they drink alcohol. However, this is counterintuitive, because communicating in a foreign language requires concentration and thinking - not to mention speaking your native language.

– I would explain the ease of using a foreign language under the influence of alcohol by the removal of inhibiting factors and greater self-confidence. Doesn’t this also explain the success in solving problems from the remote association test?

– Possibly. Studies do show that alcohol has both of these effects. But we didn’t set out to collect data in these areas. What was important to us was that subjects under the influence of alcohol experienced more sudden insights into solutions than those sober.

– Do these insights lead to better and faster solutions?

– In our experiment, yes. Under the influence of alcohol, people do not conduct a concentrated selection of options, but experience “expanding activity” of brain activity. If you look at a functional tomogram of the brain, at this moment you can see how different zones flash. This shows that the subconscious activates a variety of memory niches in search of the right word.

Read also: How to tackle difficult work correctly – So should all people in creative professions drink more?

– Very few professions require a person to constantly come up with creative solutions or be 100% focused on the problem, so it all depends on the task at hand. You know the old saying: “Write drunk, check sober”? Well, a subsequent check is essential here.

- So I'll write about all this tonight over a glass of wine, and edit it sober in the morning? Great plan.

Original article

Why Brainstorming Is Better in a Bar