Travel and the Effects of “Feature Accumulation Theory”
Travel Blog • Frank Bures • 03.06.06 | 6:17 PM ET
Why does Bangkok’s Khao San Road seem 800 miles long the first time you walk down it? Scientists may have found the answer. According to a report in Nature available only to subscribers, the reason is something called “feature accumulation theory.” The phenomenon, described in the article, is something we’ve all experienced landing in a new city.
“As details accumulate, the distance seems to get bigger,” UK researcher Andrew Crompton was quoted as saying. To test the theory, Crompton took a group of students to a small Italianate village in Wales. The subjects walked through the village, full of colorful buildings, and estimated the 500-meter route to be 1,500 meters, proving that to our brains, distance is an elastic concept and that, in the words of another psychologist quoted in the article, “The world isn’t just a picture. It depends how you engage with it.”