[BrokenCogs]

"When we read a sentence like “The cat sat on the mat because it was comfortable,” our brain automatically knows that “it” refers to “the mat” and not “the cat.” "

Am I the only one who thinks it's not obvious the "it" refers to the mat? The cat could be sitting on the mat because the cat is comfortable

[Mumps]

You are correct. This is pronoun ambiguity. I also immediately noticed it and was displeased to see it as the opener of the article. As in, I no longer expected correctness of anything else the author would write (I wouldn't normally be so harsh, but this is about text processing. Being correct about simple linguistic cases is critical)

For anyone interested, the textbook example would be:

> "The trophy would not fit in the suitcase because it was too big."

"it" may refer to either the suitcase or the trophy. It is reasonable here to assume "it" refers to the trophy being too large, as that makes the sentence logically valid. But change the sentence to

> "The trophy would not fit in the suitcase because it was too small."

[mapontosevenths]

Why would the cat being comfortable make it sit on a mat?

Many sentences require you to have some knowledge of the world to process. In this case, you need to have the knowledge that "being comfortable dictates where you sit" doesn't happen nearly as often as "where you sit dictates your comfort."

Even for humans NLP is probabilistic, which is why we still often get it wrong. Or at least I know that I do.

[D-Machine]

Ah, but cats won't just comfortably sit on a mat if they feel there is danger. They will only sit on a mat if they feel comfortable! Absent larger context, the sentence is in fact ambiguous (though I agree your reading is the most natural and obvious one).

[yuretz]

I think "it" refers to the process of sitting on the mat.