Well-traveled road effect

Biological Parallel

Foraging routes feel shorter on return trips—animals perceive familiar paths as less distant than outbound journeys. The well-traveled road effect: familiarity compresses subjective distance and time. Novel outbound routes have more landmarks and attention events; return routes are automated and perceptually compressed. This creates asymmetric effort perception: exploring feels costly, returning feels effortless. The mechanism: attention expands subjective duration. Familiar routes don't change distance; they change attention allocation.