The closest I could find is Word usage misconceptions among first‐year university physics students - which isn't exactly what you are looking for (but may have pointers to better terminology?)
This study compared students’ perceived understanding of commonplace physics terminology with their actual understanding of it. First‐year university physics students were presented with a list of sentences containing 25 selected words which are lay terms, but which have specific meanings in physics discourse. A first test required them to identify whether or not they thought they understood the meanings of the given words. This test was followed directly by another which diagnosed their actual understanding of each term. Comparisons of scores showed that the average student tested had an inadequate grasp of the meaning of more than 15 of those words that he/she had professed to understand. It is surmised that this high degree of self‐delusion about the meaning of terms could be a significant obstacle in physics instruction.
There's plenty of experimental work about how humans make poor judgments and decisions, but I haven't yet found much about how humans make poor judgments and decisions because of confusions about words. And yet, I expect such errors are common — I, at least, encounter them frequently.
It would be nice to have some scientific studies which illustrate the ways in which confusions about words affect everyday decision making, but instead all I can do is make philosophical arguments and point people to things like Yudkowsky's 37 Ways That Words Can Be Wrong or Chalmers' Verbal Disputes and Philosophical Progress.
Which keywords do I need to find experimental work on this topic? I tried Google scholar searches like "fuzzy concepts" "decision making" and effect of connotations on choices but I didn't find much in my first hour of looking into this.