Final answer:
The correct answer is priming, which is when exposure to a stimulus, such as a missing-child poster, affects the perception and interpretation of subsequent stimuli.
Step-by-step explanation:
The phenomenon of interpreting an ambiguous adult-child interaction as a possible kidnapping after seeing a missing-child poster is best illustrated by the impact of priming. Priming is related to implicit memory and involves the exposure to a stimulus affecting the response to a later stimulus, which in this case is the missing-child poster influencing the perception of the adult-child interaction. It does not involve the other options presented such as chunking (organizing items into familiar, manageable units), source amnesia (forgetting where or how you learned something), or retroactive interference (new information interfering with the recall of old information).
Priming refers to the exposure to one stimulus influencing the response to a subsequent stimulus. In this case, seeing the missing-child poster primes your mind to be more sensitive and vigilant towards potential child kidnapping situations. This priming effect can lead to an interpretation bias, causing you to interpret an ambiguous interaction as more likely to be a kidnapping.