A new scale, the veridical Near-Death Experience Scale (vNDE Scale), was developed to assess how strong the evidence is for perceptions reported during near-death experiences. Thirteen experts used a Delphi method to agree on eight criteria, including timing of investigation, medical conditions, third-party verification, and the number and quality of perceptions, scored on a four-level Likert scale. The scale was then tested on 17 cases of potentially veridical NDEs by 11 human raters and three artificial raters using large language models. In 14 of the 17 cases (82.3%), human and artificial raters agreed at over 75% when considering two adjacent evidence levels, such as moderate plus strong or low plus very low. The scale offers a practical way to evaluate the evidential strength of reported NDE perceptions.
A new scale, the veridical Near-Death Experience Scale (vNDE Scale), was developed to assess how strong the evidence is for perceptions reported during near-death experiences. Experts in near-death experiences reached consensus on eight criteria covering timing, medical conditions, third-party verification, and the type and quality of perceptions, scored on a four-level Likert scale. When 11 human raters and three artificial raters using large language models applied the scale to 17 cases, overall agreement between human and artificial judges exceeded 75% in 14 of the 17 cases (82.3%), considering adjacent levels of evidence strength. The scale offers a practical way to evaluate the evidential strength of such perceptions.