I am new to the field of linguistics so please forgive any ignorance or naivety, but there is something I have been thinking about recently and cannot find anything about it online. I suppose there are two parts to my question. The first part is simply asking for the name of a phenomena so I can read up on it more and the second is asking if my assumption on the phenomena is correct.
- What is the name of the effect when an individual makes a mistake in the fact of a sentence but doesn't realise until they say something which contradicts that fact.
e.g. someone meant to say "I went to the shop bought 3 apples, then bought 2 later in the day forgetting the previous purchase, now I have 5 apples." When they actually say "I went to the shop bought 5 apples, then bought 2 later in the day forgetting the previous purchase, now I have 5 apples." and don't realise the mistake on the first number of apples until the final mention of the total. I see this happen quite often and also see it happen when a contradiction doens't take place, i.e. no contradiction is made and the person doesn't realise they made a mistake until later on or when questioned about it.
- Does this imply that as we speak a sentence, the "state" of the sentence is somehow held in the brain and not checked for veracity but only consistency? I don't want to make any claims which are too far reaching but could this be part of misunderstanding people? We are not as concerned with making sure what we say is correct (or the meaning we intend to convey) but more so that it is self-consistent?
thanks in advance for any responses :)
