Word for change of information during transmission

Solution 1:

There is no disagreement between

A: John's eyes are black.
B: John's pupils are black.

Neither is there any contradiction between

C: John's students are black
B: John's pupils are black.

But in the sequence, A: B: C: the phrase

B: John's pupils are black.

changes its meaning, an example of total lexical ambiguity, in this case created by two words,
1 the homonym "pupils," schoolchildren (from puer +diminutive suffix) and "pupils" the centre of the eyes by metonymy fom the previous meaning here used for eyes by synecdoche,
2, the polysemous word "black".

The Cause of the Ambiguity is recategorisation or recontextualisation of phrase B:. The listener has made a category error.

This Process of Misunderstanding comes under the heading of pragmatics.

The Circumstance leading to the misunderstanding is universal lexical ambiguity.

Solution 2:

Whenever information is moving between a sender and a receiver, any change in the message is considered a

transmission error

Solution 3:

I'd refer to this as a "game of telephone," after the children's game where you gather around in a circle and whisper a message to the person next to you until you get to the end and compare the initial and final messages (which of course end up rather different with enough people).

This game is also sometimes called "Chinese whispers" by British speakers, but that name might be offensive to some people. Wikipedia has more information about the game if you aren't familiar with it.