This Bizarre Phenomenon Explains Why You Suddenly See The Same Thing Everywhere

Have you ever encountered a new phrase, thought it was interesting or funny, and then heard it everywhere? Perhaps you even believe that you coined the phrase yourself or were one of the first to introduce an SAT vocabulary word, like "aesthetic," into casual conversations. Then you begin to come across this phrase or word constantly, seeing it on social media, hearing it on a TV show, or reading it in a book. You could have a knack for getting in on the ground floor of a trend. But maybe you're just experiencing what psychologists call the frequency illusion or Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. Human perception is a remarkably unreliable gauge, and this psychological theory suggests that what you think is more common might actually just seem that way because you are now paying attention.

The Baader-Meinhof phenomenon has more to do with what you are focused on than your reality. Part of that is because attention plays an important role in memory. If something pulls our focus, not only are we more likely to notice it, but we are more likely to remember having seen it previously. That allows those encounters to pile up in our minds, generating the perception of increased frequency whether or not an increase has actually occurred.

There are two cognitive operations that account for the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon: selective attention and confirmation bias. Selective attention is the phenomenon by which we channel our focus towards one thing while filtering out other aspects of our environment that we deem irrelevant. You are constantly surrounded by enormous amounts of sensory information that could stimulate your brain. Sometimes you need to turn your attention to certain stimuli, metaphorically lowering the volume of others. Selective attention allows you to stay focused while you study or listen to a friend while the radio plays in the background. It is an important skill that we develop as we age, but it can cause us to miss some things as well.

A famous example is "the invisible gorilla." In a 1999 study, participants were shown a video of a basketball game and asked to count the number of passes made by one of the teams. What 56% of those participants failed to notice was a person in a gorilla suit walking behind the players. This goes to show that where we channel our selective attention is important for the information we perceive, although it may not reflect the full reality of what we are really witnessing.

In the context of the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, our brains are primed for selective attention by finding something novel or particularly interesting. Without consciously realizing it, we scan our environment for that thing. The personal salience makes it stick out when it might not have previously.

The other cognitive process involved in the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, confirmation bias, describes searching for information that supports an existing belief and ignoring conflicting evidence. Confirmation bias often occurs without conscious input. For instance, you might believe a certain horoscope that says you will have a great day, highlighting the positive experiences you have in your mind while ignoring the negative occurrences throughout the day. This phenomenon exemplifies the importance of hypothesis testing as we otherwise selectively interpret data that confirm our initial theories.

In the Baader-Meinhof effect, you might notice something a couple of times and then begin to believe that it is more common. Every subsequent time you see that thing, you will add that to the information you are collecting that suggests its commonality. As an example, say you were thinking of buying a specific car model. You see that car while you are out and about and assume it must be popular. Without accounting for the other car models you pass, you begin to mentally tally every time you see this same car.

While selective attention primes your brain to notice something, confirmation bias subconsciously assigns meaning to those noted encounters. Together, you start to really perceive an increase in frequency of whatever it is that has pulled your focus. Although it's not inherently harmful, it is important to keep in mind how the reality that we perceive is not always aligned with the reality that objectively exists.