Shreeya Sharma Week #13: The Rashomon Effect, A Trick of Memory
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The Rashomon effect is when people remember different versions of the same event. These versions may seem contradictory, yet none of those people are consciously lying. The name of this effect comes from Akira Kurosawa's 1950 film, Rashomon. In this movie, four distinct perspectives of a murder crime are portrayed, emphasizing how unreliable, subjective, and relative memory can be.
This term reminds me of the story of six blind men feeling an elephant for the first time. Each man touches a different part, so they all have their own idea of what they're looking at. One man, touching the tail, thinks it's a snake; another, feeling the body, thinks it's a wall. All of them are interacting with the same object, yet they all perceive and remember it differently. The story serves to highlight the importance of broadening one's perspective; if the blind men had chosen to combine their perceptions, they might have come to the conclusion that the six individual objects they were feeling were all part of the same creature.
Today, we can use the Rashomon effect in a legal context to describe witnesses with contrasting testimonies. Those people could have seen the event from a separate spot or remembered something differently due to their personal biases and thoughts. However, this term doesn't have a definitive meaning in psychology—it's primarily used in common language to express the inherent faultiness of memory.
I think that Kurosawa's film brought a vital idea to light. For everything that happens, one person's perspective drastically shifts their interpretation of the sequence of events. It's remarkable how memory can be such a fickle thing—after a certain point, an accurate, objective narration of an event is impossible to achieve. There are just too many versions to decipher. It's essential to understand how the Rashomon effect influences our day-to-day lives, and I'm sure that with a better understanding of memory, we can broaden our own viewpoints and see the world through a new lens.
Hi Shreeya! I agree with your mention of the lack of reliability in using memory to assess the accuracy of a series of events. I have heard the story of the blind men and the elephant before, and I find it interesting that you connect memory to puzzle pieces that can cover a different part of the bigger picture. Considering the same argument, it is understandable that broadening perspective through synthesis and collaboration can reveal a bigger picture while decrypting mysteries. The subjectivity of memory differentiates the human view of the world from other beings, making us unique.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting to see that you mention a murder mystery as an exemplification of the effects of memory in deducing mysteries and crime scenes. Contradicting testimonies and the presence of witnesses in every crime scene in Hollywood movies is common. Usually, these movies portray some person as wrong, but your claim shows that both parties might speak their version of the truth sometimes. With the emotion that surrounds such events, the human brain can manipulate our perception of memory and make us believe what we want to rather than the objective reality. The image that you include with the blog concisely summarizes this subject and shows how contradictory information can be correct in its fashion at the same time. Learning about your portrayal of memory as it applies to shaping justice has interested me to watch the movie that you recommend to further help myself understand the subject of your blog. Thank you for the recommendation!
Hey Shreeya, the Rashomon effect, I was looking for this same effect actually. I wrote my blog on the Mandala effect, and while I was writing my blog I remembered that there was something else. The example you gave about the elephant, I remember learning that same example from my parents. I was looking for the Rashomon effect everywhere but I couldn't figure out what it was called. So first, thank you for writing this blog. I find the Rashomon effect pretty interesting, I think it is a good example to show who a person is. It can show the different in values for a person. If a person remembers a certain part of the event and a different person remembers something else, it shows that one part is more important to the person.
ReplyDeleteHey Shreeya,
ReplyDeleteI really liked your take on memory in this context. I actually read this book once talking about how memory shifts from one person to another until one person remembers something completely different than the other. In the book it says that often times, after a crime, witnesses are kept apart from each other until the police are able to question them for two reasons 1. being obviously that if they were involved in the crime they might be creating an alibi or clearing up their stories and 2. is that after an event like a crime people memories are like fresh wounds as in they can get influenced really easily. One person may say "hey I remember it like this" and suddenly the next person will start to alter their memory until they remember the same thing. After reading your blog this is the first thing that came to mind.