Rashomon effect

The Rashomon effect or Rashomon principle is an idea about how the human mind works and in the study of how we can know whether something is real. The Rashomon effect is when people see the same thing happen but when they talk about it later, their stories and memories are not the same.^[1][2][3] People have seen the Rashomon effect in art, science, medicine, and real-life crime.^[4]

Name

The Rashomon effect is named after the 1950 movie Rashomon. In that movie, four different people tell four different stories about a murder.^[2][5][6] This movie was based on the combination of events described in two short stories ('Rashomon' and 'In a Grove' written by Ryunosuke Akutagawa. The word 'Rashomon' refers to a gate in ancient Kyoto city.

Valerie Alia decided to call the real-life effect the Rashomon effect.^[7]

In popular culture

Many works of fiction have used the Rashomon effect, for example movies:

• Courage Under Fire
• Reservoir Dogs
• Hero (2002 movie)
• Elephant
• Gone Girl
• Vantage Point
• The Usual Suspects

Many television shows have episodes that use the Rashomon effect, for example:

• "The Incident" from Fame
• "A Matter of Perspective" from Star Trek: The Next Generation
• "The Ugly Truth" from Farscape

Related pages

• Unreliable narrator
• Blind men and an elephant