<p>A research has shown it happens due to people's different expectations instead of the route's familiarity, Daily Mail reported. <br /><br />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."<br /><br />"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."<br /><br />An over-optimistic prior estimation of the journey time leads to the illusion of the return journey being shorter, the researchers said.<br /><br />The conclusion was based on three short studies where 350 people either undertook a journey by bus, bicycle or watched a video of a person taking a bicycle ride.<br /><br />When the duration estimates were compared, respondents felt that the return journey on average went by 22 percent faster than the outward journey.<br /><br />The return-trip-effect was largest for participants, who reported that the initial trip felt disappointingly long.<br /><br />When one group of participants was informed that the upcoming trip would seem long, the return-trip-effect disappeared.<br /><br />Interestingly, telling participants that the upcoming trip was going to be very long led them to experience the trip as taking less time.<br /><br />A popular explanation for the return journey feeling shorter was described -- as it was better known and so more predictable than the outward journey.<br /><br />The researchers, however, showed that this explanation was unlikely.According to co-author Michael Roy, from Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania, the return trip effect also existed when respondents took a different, but equidistant, return route.<br />"You do not need to recognise a route to experience the effect," said Roy.<br /><br />The research has been published in the journal Springer's Psychonomic Bulletin & Review.</p>
<p>A research has shown it happens due to people's different expectations instead of the route's familiarity, Daily Mail reported. <br /><br />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."<br /><br />"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."<br /><br />An over-optimistic prior estimation of the journey time leads to the illusion of the return journey being shorter, the researchers said.<br /><br />The conclusion was based on three short studies where 350 people either undertook a journey by bus, bicycle or watched a video of a person taking a bicycle ride.<br /><br />When the duration estimates were compared, respondents felt that the return journey on average went by 22 percent faster than the outward journey.<br /><br />The return-trip-effect was largest for participants, who reported that the initial trip felt disappointingly long.<br /><br />When one group of participants was informed that the upcoming trip would seem long, the return-trip-effect disappeared.<br /><br />Interestingly, telling participants that the upcoming trip was going to be very long led them to experience the trip as taking less time.<br /><br />A popular explanation for the return journey feeling shorter was described -- as it was better known and so more predictable than the outward journey.<br /><br />The researchers, however, showed that this explanation was unlikely.According to co-author Michael Roy, from Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania, the return trip effect also existed when respondents took a different, but equidistant, return route.<br />"You do not need to recognise a route to experience the effect," said Roy.<br /><br />The research has been published in the journal Springer's Psychonomic Bulletin & Review.</p>