Left-side cradling and brain lateralization

Human females tend to cradle both dolls and infants on the left side of the body. Images from the left of the visual field are transmitted directly to the right hemisphere, which is specialized for emotional decoding. In this paper we test the theory that cradling on the left side helps the cradler to interpret her infant's emotional state. In experiments using dolls and infants we show that covering the left eye of the cradler abolishes or reduces the left-side cradling tendency, whereas covering the right eye has no effect on the strength of the left-side cradling tendency. We postulate that an image of a doll or baby, when relayed from the left side of the visual field to the right cerebral hemisphere, is an important stimulus for the left-side cradling preference. © 1991.