Tunnel Traveler Turn Back Problem
There was a thought problem I had for a while regarding how a person determines how far they are willing to travel down a path before they turn back and try the other paths. This is a theory of why it happens. You could relate this to the concept of the point of no return that is the half mark of any journey.Since we don’t know how far down a path we should go as a distance, we do something different with choosing a physical path to journey down.
Solution
You go down the path until you or someone says something like, “I think we should head back before we get too far and lost.” Too far and lost is the part that does it. When you go a distance, you are tracking key points in the path you traveled. Big trees, rocks, plans, buildings, etc. Then the distance between those points.
The number of key points and overall distance is what makes up a short term complex memory that can be used to get back to the original way-point of the journey. If you have excellent memory, you most likely will go further than others might due to not thinking you will get lost. The other half is time availability. This tends to be restricted by memory but if you have a good memory it is restricted by goal deadlines, and thresholds you will meet as you become hungry, thirsty, and tired.
You will mentally somewhat split up the physical resources but also the short term memory resources between all the available perceived options. If you have 5 tunnels, you most likely would try to get down the path around 1/5 of your available time. Most likely then turn back at around 1/10 of the available time. Some may overestimate and so you may get a 1/5-1/10 range of when people turn back out of the available time and other resources.
It is just an advanced, “point of no return” method.