false negative

English

WOTD – 24 October 2018

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈfɔːls ˈnɛɡətɪv/, /ˈfɒls ˈnɛɡətɪv/
• IPA^(key): /ˈfɔls ˈnɛɡətɪv/, /ˈfɑls ˈnɛɡətɪv/, /-ɾɪv/

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Hyphenation: false ne‧ga‧tive

Noun

false negative (plural false negatives)

1. A result of a test that shows as absent something that is present.

   While a false positive from a cancer screening test will unnecessarily frighten a healthy person, a false negative will deprive them of timely treatment.

   • 1862, A[braham] Hume, “Migration of Chapels in Liverpool”, in The Church of England the Home Missionary to the Poor, Especially in Our Large Towns. […], London: Seeley, Jackson, & Halliday, […]; Liverpool: Adam Holden; Manchester: Sowler & Sons, →OCLC, page 19:

     It may well be asked, what is a man to believe, when we find ministers and laymen, those who ought to be at once Christians and gentlemen, giving currency to statements so daring and unfounded as those which I am combating; and aiding and abetting each other in attempts to prove a false negative, by feigning ignorance!

   • 1958, The Chicago Medical School Quarterly, volumes 19–20, Chicago, Ill.: Chicago Medical School, →ISSN, →OCLC:

     A is highly screening for B when the percentage of false negatives is small. It should be noted that a test which is highly specific for B may or may not have a large percentage of false negatives, […]

   • 2007, Christian Metzger, Jan Meyer, Elgar Fleisch, Gerhard Tröster, “Weight-sensitive Foam to Monitor Product Availability on Retail Shelves”, in Anthony LaMarca, Marc Langheinrich, and Khai N. Truong, editors, Pervasive Computing: […] (LNCS; 4480), Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag, →ISBN, →ISSN, pages 275–276:

     [I]t is critical that the system accurately detects and displays the sensors that are exposed to the weights of products. Errors occur when completely or partly covered sensors do not report a load (false negatives) or when sensors show the detection of a product even though they are not loaded (false positives).

   • 2015, Michael Wall, “Choice and Interpretation of Visual Field Testing”, in Leonard A. Levin and Anthony C. Arnold, editors, Neuro-ophthalmology: The Practical Guide, New York, N.Y.: Thieme Medical Publishers, →ISBN, section I (The Neuro-ophthalmic Examination), page 25, column 2:

     There are two types of catch trials: false positive and false negative. […] False-negative catch trials are meant to determine if a subject has fallen asleep or has an otherwise reduced ability to respond during a test. If a subject misses a brighter stimulus than has previously been seen, it is assumed that this represents a bona fide false-negative catch trial.

2. (statistics) A type II error (“accepting the null hypothesis when it is false”).
   • 2003, Dov Stekel, “Experimental Design”, in Microarray Bioinformatics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 222:

     Statisticians sometimes refer to false negative results as Type II errors. Type II errors cannot be controlled explicitly, but are controlled implicitly via the experimental design.

Coordinate terms

• false positive

Translations

result of a test that shows as absent something that is present

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 偽陰性／伪阴性 (wěiyīnxìng), 伪阴性 (wèiyīnxìng), 假阴性 (jiǎyīnxìng)

• Finnish: väärä negatiivinen
• French: faux négatif (fr) m
• Greek: ψευδώς αρνητικό n (psevdós arnitikó)
• Icelandic: falsneikvæð
• Indonesian: hasil negatif palsu
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Irish: bréagdhiúltach m
• Japanese: 偽陰性
• Polish: wynik fałszywie ujemny m
• Portuguese: falso negativo m
• Russian: ложноотрица́тельный результа́т m (ložnootricátelʹnyj rezulʹtát)
• Serbo-Croatian: lažno negativan rezultat m
• Spanish: falso negativo m

(statistics) type II error — see type II error

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Translations to be checked

• Hungarian: ^{(please verify)} hamis negatív
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}