Infant holding preferences in maternity hospitals: Testing the hypothesis of the lateralized perception of emotions

Infant holding biases of 202 mothers were studied in four French maternity hospitals. The study collected laterality for holding in mother/child dyads as a means of testing the emotional hypothesis (Manning & Chamberlain, 1991). Maternal holding side preferences and handedness were collected through questionnaires. In addition, hemispheric specialization for perceiving visual and auditory emotional cues was examined using a chimeric figure and dichotic listening task. The mothers displayed a significant left holding bias as well as a general perceptual bias in favor of the left side/right hemisphere. However, no significant associations were found between holding biases and emotional perceptual asymmetry. The absence of significant relationships between hemispheric specialization and holding biases does not support directly the emotional hypothesis for infant holding but can be interpreted according to the nature of the holding relationship.