Most people returning from holiday feel that the journey home passes by much quicker than the outward leg, even though both distances and journey are usually the same。
Scientists believe this "return trip effect" is not caused by being more familiar with the route on a return journey, as previously thought, but because of different expectations。
Lead researcher Niels van de Ven, of Tilburg University in the Netherlands, said: "People often underestimate how long the outward journey takes and this is therefore experienced as long."
He said："Based on that feeling, the traveler expects the return journey to be long as well, and this then turns out to be shorter than expected."
This conclusion was based on three short studies where 350 people either took a trip by bus, by bicycle or watched a video of a person taking a bicycle ride。
Respondents thought that the return journey on average went by 22 percent faster than the outward journey。
The return trip effect was largest for participants who reported that the initial trip felt disappointingly long。
Furthermore, when one group of participants was told that the upcoming trip would seem long, the return trip effect disappeared。
Co-author Michael Roy, from Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania, said: "The return trip effect also existed when respondents took a different, but equidistant, return route."
The research is published in the journal Springer's Psychonomic Bulletin & Review。