False drop
Designation for
unwanted retrieved document representations in information retrieval caused by
post-coordinative search techniques.
Example: Search for "female alcoholics". By
Boolean
search in which
"female" is combined with "alcoholism" by logical "and" are
retrieved both wanted records (such as "treatment of female alcoholics with psychotherapy")
and unwanted records (such as "treatment of alcoholism by female doctors").
This last example represents a "false drop".
Watters (1992, p. 82): "False drop (a): a false drop is a retrieved item that
meets the syntactic requirements of a query but not the semantic requirements of
a query..."
Literature:
Watters, C. (1992). Dictionary of Information Science and Technology. Boston: Academic Press, 1992.
Birger Hjørland
Last edited: 22-01-2006