A new word for a common behavior: Leafpathing

"Exploring a space by explicitly seeking out terminal paths prior to advancing to new territory."

Algorithmically, I would describe it as "depth first search, while attempting to predict and prioritize the shortest terminating paths." We could say that the alternative, "trunkpathing," would be "depth first search, while attempting to predict and avoid terminating paths."

This is a behavior that many of us engage in frequently, both in the abstract sense, but also in very concrete sense for things like video games. If you're playing a game, and you see a fork in the road, and you purposefully go down the road that you think is not the "correct" direction, because you are explicitly looking to explore the full space? Congratulations, you are leafpathing.

In the abstract sense, imagine you are learning something in a classroom. You learn about a topic, and rather than proceeding to the next topic, or moving onto the obvious examples of what to do with what you learned, you have a quirky though or application related to the topic. You raise your hand and ask away; leafpathing.

LEAFPATHING.