Readers make targeted regressions to plausible errors in reanalysis of "noisy-channel garden-path" sentences

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2605.18563v1
• Date: Mon, 18 May 2026 15:42:22 GMT
• Title: Readers make targeted regressions to plausible errors in reanalysis of "noisy-channel garden-path" sentences
• Abstract summary: We study reading dynamics for noisy-channel garden-path'' sentences.<n>We find evidence for targeted regressions.<n>We discuss the implications for theories of noisy-channel language comprehension.
• Score: 10.293916944634804
• License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
• Abstract: A key question in psycholinguistics is how inferences about the meaning of linguistic input unfold incrementally a comprehender's mind. In this work, we study reading dynamics for ``noisy-channel garden-path'' sentences, which temporarily appear well-formed but feature late-appearing violations of expectation that can be resolved not by inferring an alternative syntactic structure, but by inferring the presence of an error. We find evidence for targeted regressions -- eye movements towards regions that are promising loci of possible errors in light of later-arriving information, showing patterns consistent with the posterior inferences of a model of noisy-channel processing with reanalysis. We discuss the implications of these findings for theories of noisy-channel language comprehension and information-theoretic explanations of reading dynamics.

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