Baader-Meinhof effect: The frequency illusion

Have you ever noticed that when you decide to buy a new car you see way more of that model on the roads than you have ever seen before?

If you have then you have fallen prey to what is know as the frequency illusion. It is a cognitive bias wherein a person notices a specific concept, word or a product more frequently after being recently aware of it.

It was first noticed by Terry Mullen who after noticing the name “Baader-Meinhof” (the German terrorist group) once kept noticing over and over.

So what causes this? There are several possible causes behind it, however, the general consensus seems to be a combination of two psychological processes: selective attention and conformation bias.

Selective attention is the process of selecting and focusing on certain (selected) objects. It indicates that people usually have an unconscious ability to filter out certain aspects of the world around them and focus on one particular thing.

The conformation bias is type of cognitive bias which give you the tendency to seek evidence that confirms your hypothesis or beliefs and overlooking certain contrary evidences in the process. This usually comes into play after you have already started noticing the specific object and by focusing more on it, you get conformation about it’s existence even though the reality has not changed.