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addict
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addict
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Re: "out of the blue and everywhere" ...yeah, that's about it.How about "ublinkquitous", Faldage? I think I might just declare that the winner. As jheem said so trenchantly in another thread: "Game and Match." 
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2001
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red car
I'd thought you were referring to the experience of a process of a kind of learning in which one accumulates exposures, unawares, to a given thing over time until a 'critical mass of exposures' is reached and one becomes cognizant of it and the thing has been learned.
The red car example, though, suggests a modification of an adaptive filtering. A thing which has no special bearing on the observer, he may exclude from 'conscious observation'* as a way of organizing the world or making it manageable, becomes significant as the result of a specific experience or action on his part, here, buying a new red car.
Yes, there has to be a psych term for this kind of filtering and it's modification, as well as for the experience of an apparent new and sudden ubiquity.
___
*This is all very loosely put, but...
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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I think you're correct, IP. That's the way I read it, too.
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
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The red car example, though, suggests a modification of an adaptive filtering.
That's exactly what I'm getting at. In the case of car color it's unlikely that everybody, overnight, has decided to buy a red car. In the case of words, it may well be that a given word is enjoying a flash of popularity. OTOH, if I were searching for a given word and finally, after much effort I found it, then having it show up everywhere, that might be more like the red car example.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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unlikely that everybody, overnight, has decided to buy a red car.However - - about six or seven years ago, I got a maths class that I was teaching to do some simple statistics by getting them to note the colo(u)rs of all the cars that passed the school gateway over a twenty-minute period. This definitely showed that there was a preponderance of red cars - something in the order of 20% more than any other colo(u)r, if I remember c'reckly. At the moment, in the UK, I think there is little doubt that a similar exercise would show a marked imbalance toward silver-painted cars. My own theory is that ICI (the major paint manufacturer in UK) cocks up on it's production every now and again, and offers their over-produced colo(u)r to the manufactureres at a vast discount, so the manufacturers make that colo(u)r "fashionable" ( which probably means they can charge even more for silver cars at the moment!  )
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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You're nearly right about colour there Rhu. When I worked in the patio furniture business, I was surprised to find out that there were textile organizations that met on a yearly basis to, among other things, discuss the colours and patterns that would be popular in the upcoming years.
It is no great surprise that fashion houses often wind up having similar textiles in their lines when you know this. You'll notice this all the time...all of a sudden, every store has clothing in neon colours, or khaki, or pied-de-poule.
This colour-scheming extends to many products used everyday. The cosmetics organizations follow the colour trends closely. That is why pastel eye shadows never come out while bright neon colours are the trend and earthtoned make-up comes out when earthtoned, natural fibre clothing does.
Cars manufacturers follow the same patterns.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Of course, in my case, the red car in question was a 5 year old used car.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Being associated with the design biz meself, I've argued in meetings that it shouldn't be called 'trend setting'. A 'trend' is something learned comparing during/after the facts. Someone who is 'trendy' responds to/joins with this newly learned trend. Isn't composing the future something different altagether .?. something even *beyond "trend setting" .?. prraps... 'Trending'?
'What makes "market building" in this way any different than "insider trading" (other than the speed in which the fallacy ocurrs - supply and demand my a**)
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Joined: Sep 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Insider trading is an activity that benefits a small percentage of people to the detriment of others. Market building (I like the term) is not a function of supplying the demand, but creating a demand for the supply. Textile manufacturers have to sell their wares. If styles stayed the same for years, people would not change clothing as often – there’d be no reason to change clothing every season. Sales would go down. Companies would close. Yes, the big guys would have less money, but the regular joe would be affected too. For every company owner who makes a million, there’s hundreds, sometimes thousands or people who can feed their families. People would be out of work. I’m not arguing the fairness of the profit distribution here, just discussing the reasons behind creating the demand. True, there could be a case made for the emotional benefits of not needing to follow trends but, face it, were not Amish, we like to stand out – even while fitting in. The best example is kids, who make a point of being “different” (while all looking the same  ) than their parents. It’s a trend that repeats itself every generation. And these kids, who all think they are so original, they don’t give a second thought to the fact that the styles they are wearing to be different, were decided upon by big corporations the seasons before. There are good and bad points in this system, I just don’t think it can be compared to insider trading though.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Have a care, dear Faldage Hi Betsy - there was a study done quite some years ago that found drivers of red cars were stopped more often by police than drivers of cars in other colors.
When a further study was done on judging the speed of cars by observation alone, with many colors of cars passing a fixed point, all going 35 mph, it turned out people consistantly thought the red cars were going faster than they actually were!
When I had my red sports car I was stopped a few times - but never got a ticket. Prolly had something to do with being young and blonde and not bad looking - ya think maybe?
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