“Beer window” study wins annual “Gong Show” research showcase

BY KIRK STARRATT

kstarratt@kentvilleadvertiser.ca

NovaNewsNow.com

Although no one considers alcohol a performance-enhancing drug, some people believe drinking a beer or two can actually improve performance.

You might have heard anecdotally of this so-called “beer window”. Scoff if you will, but research being conducted at Acadia University could unlock the fact or fiction behind the “beer window”.

Dr. Rene Murphy, associate professor in the Department of Recreation Management and Kinesiology, was the Professional Studies winner and overall winner of the annual “Gong Show” Faculty Research Showcase hosted by the Division of Research and Graduate Studies at the K.C. Irving Centre Auditorium earlier this month. He presented “The ‘Beer Window’: Truth or fiction?”

Elaine Schofield, Manager, Division of Research and Graduate Studies, said each participant had three minutes and three PowerPoint slides to present his or her research. If you didn’t finish in three minutes, a gong would sound and your presentation would end. This year’s presentations were outstanding in the sense that very few of the 17 presenters were “gonged”.

Following his win, Murphy said it’s nice to be recognized among your peers. He said the idea for his research came from playing pool at the university club with a couple of his colleagues. Lots of research has been done with drinking, usually involving heavy amounts of alcohol being consumed in a short time and observing responses, but Murphy said people don’t drink like that.

They decided to study the effects of drinking one or two beers to determine whether or not the “beer window” exists. The parameters are being defined and Murphy said they want to determine differences between the sexes and between novice and experienced drinkers and pool players. ‘Window’ of improved performance? “If there is something there, we want to know what it is,” he said, pointing out that the research could be applicable to anything where motor control is important to the end result. “We want to see if we can improve performance.”

He said the best way to describe it is a graph with a “J” curve, with the number of drinks on the “X” axis and performance on the “Y”. The lower the score, the better. The hypothesis is between one and two beers, a “window” of improved performance could be identified.

The amount of beer required to reach the “window” might differ between the sexes and among people with varying sizes and drinking experience. However, performance is expected to deteriorate considerably as more and more alcohol is consumed.

Murphy said the showcase is a fun evening for researchers and when you make research fun and applicable, people become interested.

Dr. Tom Herman, Acting Vice President, Academic, said the evening is intended to be entertaining, but informative. “It’s an opportunity for us to share with one another and the community a bit of what we do at Acadia in terms of research,” Herman said. “There’s a serious element to this while we’re enjoying ourselves.”

He said the quality and diversity of research being conducted by Acadia faculty stood out, as did the connectivity of the various research topics, even across different disciplines. Herman said it’s surprising how much of the research is connected, in terms of the internal community at Acadia and the external community.

He said there are far too few opportunities for researchers to sit together in the same room and share their ideas and findings. Herman said he thought one of the most interesting parts of the evening was that the questions being asked among colleagues were coming from across the various disciplines.

The Science winner was Trevor Avery, Department of Biology, who presented “Flying Saucers of the Deep!” The Arts winner was Wanda Campbell, Department of English, who presented “Looking for Lucy”. The judges for the showcase included Rudolph Ffrench, Andrew Fry and Brian Sanderson.

The rest of the line-up…

Other presenters included Michael Leiter, Department of Psychology, who offered, “Career Narratives: The storylines of entrepreneurs”; Martin Tango, School of Engineering, “Embracing benign approaches for resource utilization and removal of toxic compounds from the environment”; Jon Saklofske, Department of English, “Using Serious Games for Teaching, Learning and Research”; Emilie Gould, School of Business, “Study of Emergency Communication: 2007 Acadia Faculty Strike; Nelson O’Driscoll, Department of Earth and Environmental Science, “Solar radiation and global mercury movement”; Darcy Benoit, School of Computer Science, “A Web Census”; Kirk Hillier, Department of Biology, “Olfactory Neuroscience: Smell’s Great!”; Jonathon Fowles, School of Recreation Management and Kinesiology, “What makes fast skaters faster?”; Sajid Hussain, School of Computer Science, “Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing”; Stephen Henderson, Department of History and Classics, “Patronage in Nova Scotia, 1933-1954”; Anthony Tong, Department of Chemistry, “Remote Environmental Monitoring”; Richard Cunningham, Department of English, “Digital Reading: Implementing the New Knowledge Environment”; Soren Bondrup-Nielson, Department of Biology, “Can we learn anything from Horney Beetles?”; and Daniel Haile, Department of Economics, “Sustainable Entrepreneurial Development and Financing for Canadian Small and Medium Enterprises”.