The Facts on Frequency Illusion (Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon)
Have you ever learned something new, heard a new song, or been taught a new phrase, and then all of a sudden it starts popping up everywhere all the time? Like an unnatural amount of times?
No, there wasn’t a worldwide conspiracy preventing people from talking about that new thing in front of you. This is just a little phenomenon known as the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon or more scientifically, the Frequency Illusion or the Recency Illusion. But what is it and why is it called that?
“Alright everyone, we can talk about Baader-Meinhof freely now!”
What is Frequency Illusion?
In 2005 professor of Linguistics at Standford University and Ohio State University, Arnold Zwicky wrote a quick paper on different illusions humans tend to experience. This is the first known use of the term “Frequency Illusion” and “Recency Illusion” which Zwicky explains is a result of selective attention bias mixed with some confirmation bias for good measure.
Now I could go into a bunch of scientific mumbo-jumbo to define selective attention and confirmation bias but, let’s be honest, who wants to read that? Plus I’m too lazy to do it and it’s not like I have many professors/scientists reading these articles. Although if you are, that’s so cool.
Basically, when you take in new information your brain gets a bit excited and holds that information in your recent memory. Your brain is now more primed to hear or see that information and it acts like a dopamine hit when you notice it.
For example, say you just recently learned that email spam is called spam because Monty Python decided to make fun of spam. Sure it was some pretty cool information you learn from a very entertaining and interesting article *cough-Related Article: Why is Spam called SPAM?-cough… but how often do you come across spam, in any form, during your day?
Oh that’s weird you just got a spam email and look at that, a news article about one of the members of Monty Python just appeared on your news feed, and is someone cooking SPAM right now in your home? How weird is that, this can’t be a coincidence, right?
“That SPAM one is weird if you’re currently home alone.”
In reality, your brain is selecting that information out of all the other information it usually filters out because it’s now seen as important.
You probably get a bunch of spam emails a day and you just delete them without a second thought. A bunch of articles scroll past your news feed every day and you usually ignore it. And, SPAM is delicious so there’s always someone eating it and you pay no mind to it.
But here is where confirmation bias comes in. Because you’ve noticed that new information a few times, your brain goes into confirmation bias mode and tells you that it is totally weird that this is randomly popping up all of a sudden. In reality that new information is not popping up a lot, you just didn’t care before.
Why is it Called The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon?
The thing about biases or illusions we experience is that they exist before a scientist/researcher/professor gives them a name and sometimes people collectively give it a name on their own. That’s essentially what happened here back in 1994.
In October of 1994 a man going by ‘Gigetto on Lincoln’ wrote a letter to the St. Paul Pioneer Press essentially describing frequency illusion, except in his description he states you have to see the new word, phrase, or idea within 24 hours.
Among his group of friends, they had named this phenomenon Baader-Meinhof after discussing the group of West German terrorists called Baader-Meinhof and then, the following day seeing a random news article about them. The friends realized this phenomenon kept happening with other things and decided to name it after the first instance they realized it.
This letter ended up being posted to the Pioneer Press’s interactive bulletin board on October 16th, 1994, the heyday of the internet. It ends with Gigetto on Lincoln inviting people to start calling this phenomenon Baader-Meinhof and clearly we have.
Quick Facts
The ‘paper’ wherein Arnold Zwicky coins two terms is less than 500 words and possibly the shortest ‘paper’ I’ve ever had to read for an article here and it’s coming from a linguistics professor. I feel there’s a sort of irony there.
Wikipedia shows that Gigetto on Lincoln is a man named Terry Mullen but I couldn’t verify that anywhere
