Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Vogel bomb. Here. Let's pretend you have oh Says to spare and you're out shopping for a shiny new ride. You've never really cared about cars that much before, minus perhaps a cerebral hate for the car commercials you see every seven seconds during a televised sporting event.
But now you're invested. And when someone mentions a certain kind of car, one you've never heard of before, but maybe that gets high ratings on a consumer review site, you're interested. Suddenly that car is everywhere. It's parked on your street, your boss's husband has one. You see two of them next to in traffic on your way home from work. The car is even popping up in those ubiquitous commercials during the game, and you swear up and down they came out of nowhere. So what exactly is
happening here? Did this car suddenly come to dominate the cultural consciousness? Or is your consciousness playing tricks on you? Welcome to the batter Main Haff phenomenon. Otherwise known as the frequency illusion or recency illusion. This phenomenon occurs when a thing you've just noticed experienced or been told about
suddenly crops up constantly. It gives you the feeling that out of nowhere, pretty much the whole world is talking about this subject, or that it's swiftly surrounding you, and you're not crazy. You are totally seeing it more. But the thing is, of course, that's because you're noticing it more. A couple of things happen when the batter main haf phenomenon kicks in. One, your brain seems to be excited by the fact that you've learned something new, and selective
attention occurs. Your brain subconsciously thinks, hey, that's awesome, I'm going to look for that thing without you needing to actually think about it, so now that your senses are on alert for it, you find it. To make it all the more powerful, Confirmation bias occurs after seeing it even once or twice. Confirmation bias is essentially our desire
to be correct. It's the psychological trait where we're inclined to notice and remember information that supports our pre existing views, and to ignore or disregard information that refutes what we already believe to be true. In other words, you start agreeing with yourself that Yep, you're definitely seeing this thing more than you ever have before. Strangely, though, the batter Mainhuff phenomenon isn't named for two researchers who studied it,
as things like this often are. Nope, it's named for a militant West German terrorist group that was active in the nineteen seventies. A nineteen nineties online comment board was the unlikely source of the name. A commenter on the St. Paul, Minnesota Pioneer press board dubbed the frequency illusion the batter Mainhuff phenomenon after they randomly heard two references to batter
main Hoff within twenty four hours. The phenomenon has nothing to do with the gang, in other words, but don't be surprised if the name starts popping up everywhere you turn. Today's episode was written by Kate Kirshner and produced by Tyler clang A. Brain Stuff is a production of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more on this and lots of other topics oddly influenced by the nineteen nineties,
visit our home planet how Stuff Works dot com. And for more podcasts for my heart radio, visit i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,