Why The Trip Home Seems To Go By Faster

Written By: Samantha Bernickus
Why The Trip Home Semms To Go By Faster
Resource: http://www.npr.org/2011/09/05/140159009/why-the-trip-home-seems-to-go-by-faster

Summary: People seem to think that the ride back home is much shorter than the ride to where ever it was you were heading. Even astronaut Alan Bean said, “Returning from the moon seemed much shorter.” This theory has a perfect explanation to why we think this way and a physiologist from Tilburg University knows. He said that the reason why we think that the trip back home seems faster is because we are more familiar with the landmarks that we had already passed on the way there. “And that might help to increase the feeling of speed, of how fast you travel”, he says. Though he felt that this was not the right answer after he had gone on a plane. He thought it was shorter back but he couldn’t look out the window and recognize anything. So he tested this theory by making people ride their bikes to a fair, some would take the same way back and others would take a different way but the same length away. He found that it didn’t matter which way you went back it still felt like a shorter trip back then on the way there. His thought now was that people expect that on the way to any place it’s going to take longer than expected. So on their way back they already know what to expect there for it feels like the ride was shorter. There are also other reasons why that the trip back home seems shorter but it really is just an allusion.

Critique: This article was not very important but it was informational and helped me understand why I always thought that rides back home felt shorter.

Impact: This story doesn’t have impact on anything except the fact that its letting you know that thinking on your way back home is shorter, is just an illusion