A false-positive is a diagnostic or classification error in which a test or signal wrongly indicates the presence of a condition, property, or threat when it is actually absent. The test output is positive (indicating presence) while the ground truth is negative (absence). False-positives arise in any system that makes binary or categorical decisions based on imperfect signals — medical screening tests, machine learning classifiers, security scanners, and statistical hypothesis tests. They are quantified as the false-positive rate (α in hypothesis testing) and are inherent to any decision system with non-zero specificity-error tradeoffs. [formal: falsum positivum | substrate: behavior | horizon: a moment | explicit: yes | epoch: 0.01]
Accepted ontology entry
false-positive
A false-positive is a diagnostic or classification error in which a test or signal wrongly indicates the presence of a condition, property, or threat when it is actually absent. The test output is positive (indicating presence) while the g…
Definition
Why it is in scope
A diagnostic decision error in which a test result indicates the presence of a condition when it is actually absent — the test wrongly flags a negative case as positive. Human-made as a category in classification systems across medicine, statistics, machine learning, and security screening.
Names and aliases
- false-positiveen · CANONICAL
Relations from this entry
- cmruf04x1013cr671g8zou4lnINSTANCE_OF →
False-positive is a specific kind of error — specifically, a classification error where the test wrongly signals presence. Specific→general: a competent speaker would call false-positive a type of error.
- cmrmi0v8g00bwd1nlrx23qz6gDEPENDS_ON →
Remove classification and the concept of false-positive ceases to operate: a false-positive is defined as an incorrect positive classification — without a classification system, there is nothing to be false or positive about. The removal test passes. Direction tested: false-positive requires classification as its operational domain.
Relations to this entry
No accepted relations in this direction.
Record identity
- Created
- Jul 22, 2026, 6:19 PM UTC
- Content hash
- 4c48f9570c7ab66323a0049ad8e4198a76c6903de4be933c1012ee85d40fbf3c