Frequency illusion
cognitive bias
The frequency illusion, also known as the Baader–Meinhof phenomenon, is a cognitive bias in which a person notices a specific concept, word, or product more frequently after recently becoming aware of it.
The name "Baader–Meinhof phenomenon" was coined in 1994 by Terry Mullen in a letter to the St. Paul Pioneer Press. The letter describes how, after mentioning the name of the German militant group Baader–Meinhof once, he kept noticing it. This led to other readers sharing their own experiences of the phenomenon, leading it to gain recognition. It was not until 2005, when Stanford linguistics professor Arnold Zwicky wrote about this effect on his blog, that the name "frequency illusion" was coined.
The occurrence of this phenomenon has increased in frequency among the general public, mainly because of the large increase in algorithmic curation across the internet.
Causes
Several possible causes behind frequency illusion have been put forth. However, the consensus seems to be that the main processes behind this illusion are other cognitive biases and attention-related effects that interact with frequency illusion. Zwicky considered this illusion a result of two psychological processes: selective attention and confirmation bias.
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This entry incorporates text from “Frequency illusion” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.