Why the return trip seems shorter than outward journey

Washington, August 26 (ANI): Do you always wonder that why your returning journey to home went quicker than your outward journey, even though both distances and journey are usually the same? Well, here is the answer.

According to a new study by Niels van de Ven and his colleagues it seems that many people find that, when taking a trip, the way back seems shorter. Their findings suggested that this effect is caused by the different expectations we have, rather than being more familiar with the route on a return journey.

"People often underestimate how long the outward journey takes and this is therefore experienced as long," said Ven from Tilburg University in the Netherlands.

"Based on that feeling, the traveller expects the return journey to be long as well, and this then turns out to be shorter than expected," added Ven.

An overoptimistic prior estimation of the journey time thus leads to the illusion of the return journey being shorter.

The study has been detailed in online in Springer's Psychonomic Bulletin and Review. (ANI)