Most people have noticed that the return journey home is much shorter than following to an unfamiliar destination. As they grow older, events pass faster, and the childhood feeling, when the hours drag on (for example, to a birthday, a trip to the sea or the onset of the holidays) disappears somewhere. Many scientists tried to explain the laws of time perception, but it turned out to provide irrefutable evidence only to a few.
Actual Hypotheses
To substantiate why the return trip seems shorter, several hypotheses have been put forward:
- fear of being late;
- the effect of perception of the new;
- positive emotional background.
Fear of being late
So, the first hypothesis provides that the road to a new place is almost always associated with work or solving urgent matters. Usually there is a time frame for some events, which makes a person more often look at the clock.
Simply put, concentration leads to the fact that events take place more slowly. The opposite effect occurs when a person returns home: there is no need to control events, the consciousness relaxes and loses control over the passage of time.
Interesting fact: Western psychologists have coined their own term, which sounds like “return trip effect” (translated as “return trip effect”). In their opinion, under the influence of this process, a person activates special psychosomatic processes that affect mood, well-being, and the production of hormones of happiness - endorphins.
The effect of perception of the new
The second hypothesis is related to focusing on the new.Faced with the unknown, a person’s attention is involuntarily emphasized, and the course of time slows down. With a detailed study of the object, interest in it disappears, it begins to be perceived as ordinary and concentration of attention no longer occurs. The way back is no longer connected with something new, therefore, time in consciousness also flows faster.
Positive emotional background
The third hypothesis considers a positive emotional background from returning home. Waiting for a meeting with relatives or anticipation of being in a comfortable environment contributes to the emergence of joy, a sense of happiness and harmony with the outside world. With positive emotions, time flows faster, a person focuses on pleasant memories and forgets to concentrate on what is happening around.
Scientific background
The hypothesis associated with a positive mood when returning home was recently experimentally proved by Japanese scientists from Kyoto University. To study the problem, 20 people were selected, who showed two videos of walking in Tokyo.
The first of them broadcasted the route to a specific destination, and the second - the return journey home. It is noteworthy that for all respondents the second video seemed to be on average 2-3 minutes shorter than the first, although they were the same in duration.
According to Kyoto scientists, the experiment confirms that with a positive emotional background, the sense of time is dulled, and its course is perceived faster at a subconscious level.
Resuke Ozawa, the author and ideological inspirer of the study, notes that the human brain monitors time through two systems: one of them is mathematical, and the second is based on an internal perception of the duration of events. It is she who is misled when her mood improves.
Thus, the road back seems shorter in time due to a positive emotional background. It affects the subconscious perception of the duration of events, reduces the concentration of attention, makes a person live in anticipation of a comfortable and cozy environment.
