Reese

I don't know how to explain this enough to get any kind of decent results from the search engine.

What's it called when just by researching something you affect to results of the test. I can't really give a good example but I'll try.

Someone is testing to see what their average heart rate is, but by having the heart monitor on, their heartbeat raises and blood pressure rises, but there's no way you can prove that that the heart rate rises without some kind of monitor.

A friend brought this up a few days ago and I remember reading something about it here a long long time ago. He's since sobered up and doesn't care anymore but It's still stuck in my head and I've just got to know what it's called, and a few better examples of how it's applied..,

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dfence

placebo effect?

Giltwist

This can be explained by a couple of things.

1) An instrumental artifact: The instrument used to observe a phenomena actually alters or even gives a false positive result.
2) Constructivism: Constructivism is the epistemological belief that knowledge (whether all or to a specific field) is based upon something other than the reality of the situation. A common variety is social constructivism, where concepts like good and evil are fabricated not by the individual but imprinted by society. In this case, we only say the heart rate is elevated because we have certain concepts of what "normal" is.

pythonite

Looking at this from a completely scientific viewpoint, there is the uncertainty principle in physics. Basically it states that one can't define precisely the position and the momentum of a particle at the same time because measuring either one of them requires modifying the other.

pythonite

I like Giltwist's answer better

Tophat665

I don't think this is the term you are looking for, but this is tickling the part of my noggin when I keep the anthro classes I took. Something about participant observation. Ahh.. it's gone now.

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ratbastid

Yeah, it doesn't apply to heartrates, exactly, but the question made me think of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Which is neatly described above.

Reese

I think Giltwist's first example discribes what I'm thinking about prefectly. The second example, not so much.

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“It is better to be rich and healthy than poor and sick” - Dave Barry

VitaminH

It is called White Coat Syndrome.

It's a documented thing, certain peoples blood pressure, heart rates etc go up when a medical person walks in, or a medical procedure, even a simple one like pulse rate or BP is about to take place.

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KnifeMissile

I don't think that cybermike was asking about the blood pressure thing in particular. I think that was simply an example to a more general idea and that this word describes that.

I know exactly what you're talking about, cybermike. That words sounds very familiar but I can't quite recall what it is. I've always said that what I really need is a good reverse dictionary.
I've tried asking this forum esoteric words to some definition but I've yet to get my answer. I wish I could help you...

bigbad

My crim teacher refers to it as reactivity, not sure if that's what you are looking for though.

VitaminH

**Smacks head at own idiocy.

It was late, I'd been studying a lot. I didn't read close enough.

A thousand apologies...

__________________
"Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever."
- Napoleon Bonaparte

hiredgun

The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle? specifically it's the electron position / velocity thing that someone mentioned, but i've heard it applied more broadly (and possibly incorrectly?) as "you can't observe something without changing it."

phukraut

"bias" is a broad word that could include what you are asking for.

MSD

It only applies to something as small as an electron or a system in which the amount of energy required to observe the system or particle (laser measuring device, etc.) is significant comparerd to the amount of energy present in a system. The lower the power of the measuring device, the more approximate the measurement is. The higher the power of the measuring device, the more it wll affect the particle being measured.