Do you ever learn (or relearn!) about something then feel like you’re hearing about it everywhere?!
This happens to me often, especially the more I read. For example, we were watching Mad Men last summer and the 1968 Democratic National Convention (the one in Chicago with rioting) was mentioned in an episode, then it was the anniversary of it shortly thereafter, then I read about it in Becoming.
It’s happened more recently, too. I read about the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster in An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth, then we watched a video about it in work training last week, and now the fiction book I am reading (Light from Other Stars) focuses on it too. What a coincidence, right?
Maybe not. There’s something called the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon*, which is a term for frequency illusion – “the illusion in which a word, a name, or other thing that has recently come to one’s attention suddenly seems to appear with improbable frequency shortly afterwards.” (<— from Wikipedia)
So when we learn something new, it’s fresh in our mind, and we pay more attention to other mentions of it, which is called selective attention. Then, confirmation basis, which makes us search for or interpret information in a way that confirms what we already believe, makes us think this is new information that wasn’t mentioned as frequently before, because we are just now noticing it. But we are really just paying attention to information we were ignoring before. Interesting!
That must be part of what is happening to me, but I also feel like the Challenger mention is coincidental. Sure, it would be in an astronaut’s memoir from the end of the twentieth century, but for it to pop up in training class, then in some random book I chose to read? That seems random.
Whatever causes it, it sure is making me remember things I should have already remembered from history class!
Today in history; the first time Leo ever tried a french fry!
I used to have an amazing memory. It’s really not as good as it used to be. So I gotta keep writing here, and keep putting things in my calendar, and in other notes!
*Click on that link to see why it’s called that – it’s interesting!
Yes, I experience this phenomenon as well, and I think a lot of people do. It always makes me think, “Wow, how unobservant have I been?!?”
How did Leo like the fry?
I don’t think we’re that unobservant – there’s way too much to take in to remember everything!
He liked it I think!
Very fascinating! I have experienced this before with things, too… Never knew it had an actual name.
Leo is very cute!
I think the name is pretty new, at least, according to that article! Surely researchers have thought about it before, though!
Thanks 🙂
Interesting! I have that happen all the time but it makes sense that it’s just me paying more attention once I hear something the first time. Leo looks like he enjoyed that french fry 🙂
It would be more interesting if it was some strange coincidence, right? Alas, it’s not.
I think he did!!!
Ugh, this happens to me CONSTANTLY! It happens a lot with cars, which is weird. Earlier this year, I was looking at new cars just to shop around and for some reason stumbled on Kia Fortes, which were in my price range. And then I decided not to buy a new car and started seeing Fortes EVERYWHERE. Enough with the Kia Fortes, Universe!
Ha, that is funny you mention cars because I think car shopping was the exact reference in the link where I first read about it!!! So you are not alone!!!
Chiming in to say me too – and I am glad to know others have this experience too. It makes sense, being hyper aware of something without being aware that you’re being hyper aware. ::mind blown::
Mind totally blown! I wonder if we’ll be more aware of it now when it happens?!
An additional factor is that we (people) have a difficulty properly contextualizing coincidences. For example, while the odds that you had three unrelated exposures to Challenger in close temporal proximity is a relatively unlikely coincidence. However, the odds that you would have any such coincidence is much, much higher.
Wow, did I need to proofread that! (for grammar)
Yeah, we think a lot more things are coincidental than actually are!!!
Hmm… I’m not sure it’s that we think things are coincidental that aren’t, but rather that we think things aren’t coincidental that are. “This can’t be a coincidence!” when it almost certainly is.
I’ve heard about this before, though I didn’t realize it had a name (so I certainly didn’t know the history behind the name – that’s wild! I would’ve assumed it was named after the scientists who studied it or something like that, not after a meme! I also didn’t know memes existed in 1994.). I’ve actually heard about it in anxiety contexts before – like when you hear a story about something bad happening to one person, and then you hear about a similar thing happening to another person and start to worry it’s going to happen to you, too, because you’re seeing it everywhere. It’s not actually more frequent (or more likely to happen to you): you’re just noticing it more.
It makes my heart warm to know memes have been a thing for so long. Aww <3 Memes are the way of life. LOL. Kind of joking.
But yeah, it's just named after the incident that caused it to be theorized... which you'd think would make me remember the name better, but no. I will work on that.
Wow, I can totally see that with anxiety, but never would have made that connection. Anxiety is so dang tricky like that. I hope hearing that explanation helps people with that issue start to work through it better.