IS THE LEFTWARD CRADLING BIAS RELATED TO LATERAL ASYMMETRIES IN ATTENTION

A recent explanation for human females' strong leftward preference whe n cradling infants in nonfeeding interactions relies on the neuropsych ological variable of hemispheric asymmetry of function. Normal individ uals also tend to bisect lines to the left of center, a tendency proba bly related to asymmetries in the cerebral attentional system. A possi ble relationship between this attentional asymmetry and left-sided cra dling was investigated in two experiments. The well-established findin gs of a leftward cradling bias and of a leftward line bisection bias w ere replicated. However, there was no significant relationship between the two variables.