diff --git a/sklearn/cross_validation.py b/sklearn/cross_validation.py
index 03c74b88f5f28..ff327a25e4924 100644
--- a/sklearn/cross_validation.py
+++ b/sklearn/cross_validation.py
@@ -1905,11 +1905,14 @@ def permutation_test_score(estimator, X, y, cv=None,
         The scores obtained for each permutations.
 
     pvalue : float
-        The returned value equals p-value if `scoring` returns bigger
-        numbers for better scores (e.g., accuracy_score). If `scoring` is
-        rather a loss function (i.e. when lower is better such as with
-        `mean_squared_error`) then this is actually the complement of the
-        p-value:  1 - p-value.
+        The p-value, which approximates the probability that the score would
+        be obtained by chance. This is calculated as:
+
+        `(C + 1) / (n_permutations + 1)`
+
+        Where C is the number of permutations whose score >= the true score.
+
+        The best possible p-value is 1/(n_permutations + 1), the worst is 1.0.
 
     Notes
     -----
diff --git a/sklearn/model_selection/_validation.py b/sklearn/model_selection/_validation.py
index ab18d9035b4d2..e65720b709555 100644
--- a/sklearn/model_selection/_validation.py
+++ b/sklearn/model_selection/_validation.py
@@ -596,11 +596,14 @@ def permutation_test_score(estimator, X, y, groups=None, cv=None,
         The scores obtained for each permutations.
 
     pvalue : float
-        The returned value equals p-value if `scoring` returns bigger
-        numbers for better scores (e.g., accuracy_score). If `scoring` is
-        rather a loss function (i.e. when lower is better such as with
-        `mean_squared_error`) then this is actually the complement of the
-        p-value:  1 - p-value.
+        The p-value, which approximates the probability that the score would
+        be obtained by chance. This is calculated as:
+
+        `(C + 1) / (n_permutations + 1)`
+
+        Where C is the number of permutations whose score >= the true score.
+
+        The best possible p-value is 1/(n_permutations + 1), the worst is 1.0.
 
     Notes
     -----