17 TERMS
- Alternative explanation
- A competing conventional account tested against the available record.
- Anomalous result
- An unusual result supported by multiple records that resisted reasonable attempts at conventional explanation; not proof of a paranormal cause.
- Baseline
- A record of ordinary conditions used as a comparison for later readings.
- Chain of custody
- The documented history of capture, storage, access, transfer, and alteration of evidence.
- Contamination
- An influence that can compromise a recording, measurement, or interpretation.
- Control
- A comparison condition used to isolate the variable or explanation being tested.
- EMF
- Electromagnetic field. An EMF meter measures within specific bands and ranges; it does not identify a paranormal source.
- EVP
- Electronic voice phenomenon: a label applied to a perceived voice-like sound in a recording. The label alone does not establish its source.
- Evidence
- Preserved information with enough provenance and context to assess a claim.
- False positive
- A result interpreted as a target phenomenon when an ordinary cause or artifact produced it.
- Instrument reading
- An output from a device, including its units, settings, location, time, and operating limitations.
- Investigator observation
- What an investigator directly perceived, recorded separately from interpretation.
- Pareidolia
- The perception of a meaningful pattern in ambiguous sensory information.
- Reported experience
- A person's account of what they experienced; distinct from an independently verified observation.
- Repeatability
- The extent to which a result can be obtained again under comparable conditions.
- Spectrogram
- A display of signal energy across frequency and time; useful for analysis but not a source identification by itself.
- Unresolved event
- An event that remains unexplained after reasonable investigation and review.