“回程效應”如何讓回程變短

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。據英國《每日郵報》8月31日報道，度假歸來後，很多人都會有這樣的感覺：返程路上的時間好像比去時的過得快一些，即使來回的距離和行程是一樣的。

以前我們認爲產生這種“回程效應”的原因是我們對回程的路線更加熟悉，而科學家們卻認爲是因爲期望的不同。

負責這項研究的荷蘭蒂爾堡大學研究員尼爾斯•範德•馮說：“人們往往以爲去的時候花不了多長時間，(所以他們就一直會有那種‘怎麼還沒到’的感覺)，同時也會認爲時間已經過去了很久。”

他說：“基於這種感覺，旅行者們就想着回程應該也要花很長時間，而結果往往是回程並沒有想象的那麼遠。”

研究人員通過對350人進行三組小實驗後得出了這個結論。他們中有的乘車旅行，有的騎車旅遊，還有的負責觀看那些騎車旅行的視頻。

這些調查對象認爲回程所用時間相對於去程少了22%。

“回程效應”在那些認爲去程格外漫長的人身上體現的最明顯。

此外，如果一組研究對象被(事先)告知去程將會比較遠，那麼“回程效應”就會消失。

來自美國賓夕法尼亞州伊麗莎白城學院的研究員邁克爾•羅伊說：“當調查對象採用一條距離相同而路線不同的回程路線時，回程效應也會出現。”

該研究發表在《施普林格心理環境通報和評論》期刊上。