A child hears the following sentence: "The driver slowed down, looked in the mirror, then stopped the car." Which cognitive process demonstrates a lexical priming?

The reasoning behind the correct answer lies in the concept of lexical priming, which refers to the phenomenon where exposure to one word influences the response to another related word. In this scenario, when the child hears the sentence, the word "driver" is directly related to the word "car." The presence of "driver" activates relevant lexical connections in the child's mind, allowing them to process "car" more quickly due to this association.

This priming effect facilitates faster recognition and understanding of words that are contextually or semantically related, demonstrating how interconnected language processing can be. As the child processes the sentence, they likely encounter "car" immediately following "driver," reinforcing the connection and speeding up their cognitive processing of the word.

The other choices reflect different cognitive processes. Recalling a previous experience with driving relates more to personal memory rather than lexical access. Identifying the meaning of all words in the sentence, while indicative of comprehension, does not specifically highlight the priming effect at work. Using context clues refers more to deductive reasoning based on situational understanding rather than the activation of lexical relationships between words. Thus, the concept of lexical priming is best captured by the child's quick processing of "car" because it is linked to "driver."