12/06/2024
Have you ever noticed that once you learn about something new, you start seeing it everywhere?
This cognitive bias is known as the frequency illusion. It’s when something you have recently noticed suddenly seems to appear with surprising frequency.
Frequency illusion is also known as the “Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon”. This term emerged in 1994, coined by Terry Mullen after he experienced this effect with the name of German terrorist group Baader-Meinhof. After saying the name once, all of a sudden he was hearing it everywhere.
Later, in 2005, Stanford linguistics professor Arnold Zwicky dubbed this the “frequency illusion”, bringing academic attention to the issue.
So, why does this happen? According to Zwicky, it’s primarily due to two psychological processes: selective attention and confirmation bias.
Selective attention causes us to unconsciously prioritize information that has recently been brought to our attention, making it more noticeable than before. Confirmation bias then reinforces this by filtering out instances that don’t fit our focused attention, making the newly noticed item seem even more prevalent.
Understanding the frequency illusion can be useful in fields like medicine, where it can be put to positive use to increase awareness of less-common diseases.
Next time you swear something has suddenly become a trend overnight, remember: It could be a cognitive trick.
Credit: Wikipedia
Source: Wikipedia (Instagram)
