This effect is a visual representation of the journey of life. It features a winding road that is full of twists and turns, with different obstacles and challenges along the way. The effect is meant to represent the journey of life, and how we must navigate the ups and downs of life in order
The well travelled road effect is a cognitive bias, coined by Jeffrey Popova-Clark in 2010, in which travellers will estimate the time taken to traverse routes differently depending on their familiarity with the route. Frequently travelled routes are assessed as taking a shorter time than unfamiliar routes. This effect creates errors when estimating the most efficient route to an unfamiliar destination, when one candidate route includes a familiar route, whilst the other candidate route includes no familiar routes. The effect is most salient when subjects are driving, but is still detectable for pedestrians and users of public transport. The effect has been observed for centuries but was first studied scientifically in the 1980s and 1990s following from earlier "heuristics and biases" work undertaken by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky.