Ever Heard of Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon? a/k/a Frequency Illusion or Recency Illusion...

by Brenda Bishop-Kyle

I went to see my son at college yesterday and while in line at Wendy's drive-thru the voice says "that will be $7.47."  I say, "That number keeps popping up all the time" and give him several examples.  He says to me, "That's a syndrome. No it's a disorder.  I can't think of what it's called..."  So, I looked it up when I was home and what struck me after researching was the fact that after experiencing the phenomenon my whole life like millions of others that someone actually dubbed it something;  Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon.

Named after hearing reference a few times within 24 hours to Baader-Meinhof a group of terrorist gorillas in  West Germany during 1970"s; The St. Paul Minnesota Pioneer Press is credited as the source not the linguist who named it as such in 1994 after realizing that no one never knew what to call it.  It has nothing to do with the gang.  But you will be hearing this name more frequently.

The phenomenon occurs sporadically all the time.  Someone calls you and you say, "I was just thinking about you."  Other examples are reoccurring numbers like mine "747"  or my sister's "431" our old house number.  Phrases are common; you read or see a phrase then hear it all the time.

The reason for this is our brains’ prejudice towards patterns. Our brains are fantastic pattern recognition engines, a characteristic which is highly useful for learning, but it does cause the brain to lend excessive importance to unremarkable events.   Considering how many words, names, and ideas a person is exposed to in any given day, it is unsurprising that we sometimes encounter the same information again within a short time. When that occasional intersection occurs, the brain promotes the information because the two instances make up the beginnings of a sequence. What we fail to notice is the hundreds or thousands of pieces of information which aren’t repeated, because they do not conform to an interesting pattern. This tendency to ignore the “uninteresting” data is an example of selective attention.  Good read about Baader -Meinhof http://www.damninteresting.com/the-baader-meinhof-phenomenon/  written by Alan Bellows.  (I would of printed full copy below but Damn Interesting would be mad at me.  So I just did the intro and an excerpt above...  It's a great article about this phenomenon):

The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon

Article #137 • Written by Alan Bellows

You may have heard about Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon before. In fact, you probably learned about it for the first time very recently. If not, then you just might hear about it again very soon. Baader-Meinhof is the phenomenon where one happens upon some obscure piece of information—often an unfamiliar word or name—and soon afterwards encounters the same subject again, often repeatedly. Anytime the phrase “That’s so weird, I just heard about that the other day” would be appropriate, the utterer is hip-deep in Baader-Meinhof.
Most people seem to have experienced the phenomenon at least a few times in their lives, and many people encounter it with such regularity that they anticipate it upon the introduction of new information. But what is the underlying cause? Is there some hidden meaning behind Baader-Meinhof events? ... (to read more click this link http://www.damninteresting.com/the-baader-meinhof-phenomenon/ 

I am still in awe of the fact that a group or someone decided to call the phenomena, coincidence, or experience by a given name.  Everyone will now know what to refer to it as.  And you will be hearing about this more frequently...