Keywords

These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

Definition

A false positive occurs when an examinee’s performance on a test incorrectly identifies the examinee as having the condition of interest (COI) being evaluated when in fact the examinee does not actually have the COI. The false-positive rate for a test may vary for different populations of interest when the same cutoff score is used to determine the presence of a COI. For example, using the standard, recommended cutoff score on a performance validity test (PVT) for determining credible verses non-credible levels of performance is more likely to result in a higher false-positive identification rate for individuals who have either an intellectual disability or dementia (e.g., Dean et al. 2008, 2009) compared to a neurocognitively intact sample. A false positive is also more likely to occur when a test uses a relatively lower cutoff score for identifying an individual as having the COI versus a higher cutoff score. A relatively lower cutoff score maximizes sensitivity for detecting the COI, but increases the rate of false-positive identification (i.e., decreases a test’s specificity).

Cross-References