Rashomon effect

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The Rashomon effect is the effect of the subjectivity of perception on recollection, by which observers of an event are able to produce substantially different but equally plausible accounts of it. A useful demonstration of the use of this principle in scientific understanding can be found in the article "The Rashomon Effect: When Ethnographers Disagree," by Karl G. Heider (American Anthropologist, March 1988, Vol. 90 No. 1, pp. 73-81).

It is named for Akira Kurosawa's film Rashomon, in which a crime witnessed by four individuals is described in four mutually contradictory ways. The film is based on two short stories by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, "Rashōmon" (for the setting) and "Yabu no naka", otherwise known as "In a Grove" (for the story line).