The right hemisphere’s affinity for both the perception and expression of emotion appears to be confirmed by the strong universal tendency to cradle infants with their faces to the left, so that they fall within the principal domain of attention of the adult’s right hemisphere, and they are exposed to the adult’s own more emotionally expressive left hemiface.267 This preference is known to go back at least 2,000–4,000 years,268 and even left-handed mothers display the leftward cradling bias.269 In fact even chimpanzees and gorillas show the same leftward bias for cradling their infants.
