Clustering Illusion

The fallacy was first described in a 1985 paper by psychologists Thomas Gilovich, Amos Tversky, and Robert Vallone. Their study "The Hot Hand in Basketball" questioned whether players have "hot hands"—being more likely to make shots after successful shots. The paper became the benchmark on the subject for years. Beyond basketball, Gilovich argued the effect occurs across random dispersions, including two-dimensional data like WWII V-1 flying bomb impact clusters on London maps. The effect stems from inability to properly understand randomness.