surprisal

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

They also used a computational technique to quantify each sentence's "surprisal," or how uncommon it is compared to other sentences.

From Science Daily • Jan. 3, 2024

This is consistent with previous studies showing people have more difficulty processing sentences with higher surprisal, the researchers say.

From Science Daily • Jan. 3, 2024

This analysis revealed that sentences with higher surprisal generate higher responses in the brain.

From Science Daily • Jan. 3, 2024

For their expedition to rob our gardens, they had brought their sovereign’s sole heir along with them, as they never leave any of the royal family behind them, for fear of a surprisal.

From Tales from Blackwood Volume 5 by Various

It was yet, however, some hours till morning; and it was thus necessary, in case of sudden surprisal, to establish a chain of outposts around the position occupied by the troops.

From Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 11 by Wilson, John Mackay