the.com/eyewitness
A human who saw something and remembers it with the confidence of a camera and the accuracy of a rumor.
means A person who personally saw an event happen and can report on it firsthand.
from A straightforward 17th-century compound: 'eye' (the organ of seeing) plus 'witness' (one who gives testimony), stitched together to specify testimony based on direct sight rather than hearsay. English loves this kind of literal-minded compounding — same instinct that gave us 'earwitness' for sound, though that one never caught on the way 'eyewitness' did, likely because courts and journalism needed a crisp word for 'I was there and saw it myself' versus secondhand report.
- memory myth
- Memory is reconstructed each time, not replayed like video
- stress effect
- High stress narrows attention, often missing weapon-holder's face
- false convictions
- Leading cause of wrongful convictions overturned by DNA evidence
- confidence trap
- Certainty in testimony barely correlates with actual accuracy