A new justification for your constant tardiness

We all often underestimate the time that we need to get to work. Maybe once - just one - it took 20 minutes, but in most cases the road takes 25 or 30. You know it very well, but still leave the house too late, and everyone in the office knows you as the person who Constantly late.

But, perhaps, the reason for the delay lies in the nature of man? The team of neuroscientists has just discovered a very convenient, but at the same time rather complicated justification for your delays. It turns out that people tend to underestimate the time they need to overcome a familiar route. The laws of time and space, of course, can not be changed simply because you need to get to the workplace on time, but it seems that many of us believe that this is possible.

Why do we overestimate the length of the route

The new study, published in the journal Hippocampus, refers to the fact that participants tend to overestimate the physical length of their route, but at the same time underestimate how long it will take them to overcome. This means that people tend to exaggerate the length of the familiar distances, since the level of detail that they have stored about these places is important for memory.

If you remember, for example, every Starbucks and intersection on the way to work, you will feel that this route is longer, compared to what you do not remember in detail. The researchers suggested that a more detailed neural representation makes this space seem bigger. And when they asked a group of students who lived in the same building in London for 9 months, draw a small map of the neighborhood, these assumptions were confirmed. The students exaggerated the physical distance of the routes that they followed every day, and made this distance longer than it actually was.

... And underestimate the time

Researchers predicted that if students overestimate the physical distance between two points, they had to re-evaluate and the time it would take to overcome this distance. Instead, students told researchers that they would reach their destination much earlier than they possibly could.

Such results look rather strange, and the authors of the study are not sure why this happens. Maybe there are separate neural systems for calculating the spatial extent and time needed to overcome this space. Maybe we judge the time necessary to overcome a familiar route, using our experience. At the same time, drawing a map, as students should have done, can not be based on knowledge and must be restored from the brain area that is responsible for the spatial representation.

Convenient excuse

Scientists suggest that this new discovery can be used as a convenient excuse for your being late, which others can not disagree with. So next time you can tell your boss, for example, the following: "Yes, I had to arrive on time, but since my brain uses separate systems to estimate the spatial extent and time needed to overcome this route, I simply can not Be responsible for this delay. You know, this happens often. "