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You've probably experienced it before:
你很可能經歷過這樣的事情：
you go to the grocery store or wherever,
去雜貨店或其它地兒，
and for some weird reason, coming back seems to take a lot less time than getting there did.
因為一些奇怪的原因，回來的時間似乎比去那里的時間更少。
Weirdly less time.
很奇怪。
Suspiciously less time.
令人百思不得其解。
What kind of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff is this?!
為什么不一樣呢！？
Well, good news.
哦，這是個好問題
You probably weren't abducted by aliens or anything like that.
很可能不是被外星人綁架，或是什么別的原因。
And unless you got stuck in traffic or something on the way out, your route back wasn't actually shorter.
除非你在路上遇到交通堵塞或其它什么事情，否則其實你回來的路程并沒有縮短。
You're just experiencing the return trip effect because your brain isn't all that accurate at estimating how long things take.
這不過是回程效應，因為你的大腦并不能準確估計需要多長時間。
This feeling that the way back is shorter is so universal that psychologists have been trying to understand why it happens for decades.
人們都會有這種感覺，以至于幾十年來，心理學家們一直在試圖弄明白為什么會出現這種狀況。
Back in the 1950s, researchers proposed that it was due to familiarity, which would kind of make sense.
早在20世紀50年代，研究人員就提出這和熟悉程度有關，這是有道理的。
They figured that on the way out,
研究發現，
you're actively paying attention to all sorts of new sights, so you really feel every second as it passes.
去的時候你正積極地關注著各種各樣的新事物，所以你真的感覺到時間在一秒一秒地過去。
But on the way back,
但在返回的路上，
while you might note a few landmarks, you just aren't noticing things the same way because you've seen it all before.
你可能會注意到一些地標，只是注意的方式不一樣，因為你以前都看到過。
And because you're paying less attention, your ability to estimate time gets a little, well, warped.
因為不太注意，所以估計時間就不準了。
There's evidence that things like attention to the passage of time,
有證據表明，時間的流逝、
the number of events we experience during a period of time, and stuff like boredom and impatience can mess up how you perceive time.
我們在一段時間內經歷事件的數量、無聊和急躁會打亂你對時間的認知。
And familiarity could potentially affect any of those.
熟悉度可能會影響到這些。
But… there's actually not much support for the idea that familiarity is to blame.
但是，事實上，沒有多少人支持這樣的觀點——熟悉度是罪魁禍首。
For example, one study found that as long as participants watching a video had the sense that they were moving,
例如，研究發現，只要參與者觀看視頻時感覺自己在移動，
just being told that the way back was the way back was enough to make it feel shorter.
只要告訴他們回去的路還是那條路，他們就會感覺路程短一些。
Which is bonkers.
有些不正常。
And more studies have found that you don't actually perceive the time wrong in the moment.
更多研究發現，實際上你并沒有意識到時間的錯誤。
When participants in a 2015 study were asked to tell the researchers every time they thought three minutes had passed,
在2015年的一項研究中，參與者被要求在每次自己認為已經過去三分鐘的時候告訴研究人員，
they did equally well when watching videos of an outbound trip, a return trip, and an alternate route of the same length.
他們在觀看出境旅游、回程以及有著相同路程的備用視頻時表現的很好。
But when reflecting on the experience afterwards, all of a sudden, they thought the return trip video was shorter than the other two.
但當他們事后回想這段經歷時，突然之間，他們認為回程視頻比另外兩段短。
So, you know, hindsight not so 20/20.
所以，事后的感覺不是都對的。
This all suggests that the return trip effect has something to do with the stories we tell ourselves after the fact, not how we perceive time.
這一切都表明，回程效應與事后我們告訴自己的事情有關，而和我們感知時間的方式無關。
Weird and cool as that is, though, it doesn't tell us why we make the error.
盡管這很奇怪也很酷，但它并沒有告訴我們為什么會犯這樣的錯誤。
The most recent idea, which seems to be gaining traction among psychologists, is that it happens because of a violation of expectations.
最近的一個觀點似乎頗受心理學家歡迎，那就是預期超出。
In general, we're pretty bad at estimating how long things will take.
一般來說，我們不善于估計事情需要多長時間。
Anyone who has ever waited until the last minute to write a paper or packed desperately 45 minutes before their flight takes off knows this very well.
等到最后一刻才寫論文的人或者在飛機起飛前45分鐘拼命打包的人都有這種感受。
So, like most things in our lives,
所以，就像我們生活中的大多數事情一樣，
we think the outbound trip will take less time than it actually does.
我們認為出境游的時間會比實際時間短。
And that makes it feel painfuly long.
這種感覺會讓日子很難熬。
Then, on the return trip, we adjust our expectations:
然后，在回程中，我們調整了預期：
it's gonna take forever and we just gotta deal.
時間得很長，我們必須要解決。
But the sheer misery of the outbound trip means that we overestimate the return trip.
但我們對出境游的痛苦意味著我們高估了回程的時間。
We expect it to be extra painfully long, and then we end up being pleasantly surprised by how short it is.
我們以為它會特別長，但最終我們會驚喜地發現它是那么短。
But, of course, that's just a hypothesis— so a 2011 study published in Psychonomic Bulletin &
但是，當然，這只是一個假設——所以2011年發表在《心理經濟學公報》上的一項研究；
Review tested it and the familiarity hypothesis head-to-head.
再次測試了該研究和熟悉度假說。
They had 93 college freshmen bike to a forest for some get-to-know-you bonding games at the beginning of the school year.
他們讓93名大一新生騎著自行車去森林里玩一些“開始了解你”的游戲
The students biked out one way and then came back either the same way or a new and different way that took the same amount of time.
學生們采取騎車的方式，然后以同樣或者另一種花費時間相同的交通方式返程。
The return trip effect showed up regardless of which way they went back, so familiarity didn't make the rides feel shorter.
無論采取何種方式，回程效應都會顯現出來，所以熟悉程度并沒有讓行程更短。
But the effect was more extreme when the student thought the outbound trip took longer than they'd expected it to.
但當學生認為出境游的時間比他們的預期時間要長時，這種效應就更加極端了。
In fact, the more off their expectations were at first, the worse they were at judging how long it took to get back....
事實上，起初的期望值越低，判斷返程的時間就越糟糕。
Which is exactly what you'd expect if it was expectations, not familiarity, causing the return effect.
準確來說，是期望而非熟悉度導致了回程效應。
And that fits nicely with the other studies.
這和其它研究得出的結果吻合。
Ultimately, it's more about how we think about and frame the return trip in our minds than what's happening in the moment that matters.
歸根結底，這和我們如何思考和在腦海中規劃回程有關，而不與重要時刻發生了什么有關。
And that also potentially answers another timeless question: why your daily commute always feels so long.
這也可能回答了另一個永恒的問題：為什么你總是感覺每天的通勤時間很長？
You know every inch of your route to work all too well, so you're super good at predicting how long it will take —
你對你的工作路線了如指掌，所以你非常擅長預測路程時間
and that means you're rarely pleasantly surprised.
這意味著意外驚喜是絕少的。
Thanks for watching this episode of SciShow Psych!
感謝收看心理科學秀節目！
If you like this episode, you might also like our episode on whether doorways really make you forget things.
如果你喜歡本集節目，你可能也會喜歡我們的節目——門廊是否真的讓你忘事。
