By: Brenda Guzman-Reyes
Around three years ago I was heavily involved with the fandom of Kpop boyband NCT 127, pronounced N-C-T-one-two-seven. In September of 2021 the group released the song “Sticker”. The song opens with a shriek produced by a flute. The flute can then be heard in the background throughout the song. Given the unconventional flute notes and the band’s history of incorporating other experimental sounds, the criticism poured down for months on end.
Image Source: SM Entertainment
Album cover for Sticker
With time the flute became beloved and embraced by the fandom as essential to the lore, who for long struggled to defend their right to enjoy the song.
To NCT 127 fans, there is no other symbol as powerful for summoning them like the number 127. It is no exaggeration to say the number 127 is the equivalent of the bat signal. Particularly on twitter - where kpop fans overrun the site no matter the context as long as the numbers 127 in that order are mentioned - there will be fans of the group in the quotes and replies with an attached clip of the intro of the flute from the Sticker music video. The frequency at which these jokes were being made had two personal results. One, I subconsciously began to search for the numbers 127 all around me simply to make the joke. Two, I thought of how strangely common 127 is. Slowly, every other day the value would appear in the most odd and random of places. I had my suspicions, is 127 a common number or am I finding what I am searching for?
This kind of phenomena goes by the name Frequency Illusion where something appears more frequently than it actually is because the individual has taken notice of that something in particular, according to CU Denver News. This can apply to colors, objects, shapes, words, ideas, etc. The causes of frequency illusion are selective attention and confirmation bias.
Selective attention is an important process for learning, where we select and focus our attention on relevant stimuli while ignoring distractions. The phenomenon being seen frequently has relevance or importance to the individual resulting in the illusion of frequent appearance. In my case, this is one of my favorite bands whose music I regularly consume. Confirmation bias is when the phenomenon is being further noticed than before in order to confirm that the phenomenon is actually occurring, leading to the individual seeing it more frequently.
Frequency illusion becomes an interesting story when it occurs in the field of medicine and criminology as mentioned by CU Denver News, where it can be the detriment or key to solving the problems presented. Further studies into frequency illusion have been conducted. In one study made in 2014 as covered by the Heuristics Encyclopedia, it was found that frequency illusion may bias perceptions of the economy-wide inflation rate toward the individual inflation rates for commonly-purchased goods.
Overall though, frequency illusion is fairly normal affecting everyone at some point. Hopefully there is less to fear now that you know why you keep seeing something very often.
Link to the Sticker music video https://youtu.be/1oYWnbTSang