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TagsBY ANGELA DAIDONE
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
Your boss may not approve of the method, but according to a report in BusinessWeek, a few drinks may help you be a little more creative when it comes to dealing with problem-solving tasks.
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) found that moderate alcohol consumption can lessen one’s ability to pay attention to definitive details but allows for a more free-thinking approach to solving problems, the report said.
Scientists at UIC gave vodka-cranberry cocktails to participants of the study, which they drank while watching the animated movie Ratatouille until they had a blood-alcohol level of .07. When asked to solve math problems while remembering a series of words, they did moderately well.
But when the same group was presented with word-association problems that required more creative answers, the intoxicated participants correctly answered more problems in less time, and claimed to have responded in a more intuitive manner, e.g., “It just came to me!” mindset, than their sober counterparts did.
Researchers published their findings in the journal Consciousness and Cognition.
