When an infant makes eye contact with her mother, each experiences a spontaneous surge of emotion (joy). The baby responds with a radiant smile, the mother with her own smile and rhythmic vocalizations (baby talk). This is the grounding base of the state-of-play. It is known, through EEG and other imaging technologies, that the right cerebral cortex, which organizes emotional control is “attuned” in both infant and mother.
Sample References:
Schore, A.N. (1994). Affect regulation and the origin of the self: The neurobiology of emotional development. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Schore, A.N. (2000c). The self-organization of the right brain and the neurobiology of emotional development. In M.D. Lewis & I. Granic (Eds.), Emotion, Development, and Self-Organization, (pp. 155-185). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Schore, A.N. The seventh annual John Bowlby memorial lecture. Minds in the making: attachment, the self-organizing brain, and developmentally-oriented psychoanalytic psychotherapy. British Journal of Psychotherapy,17, 299-328.
Damasio, A.R. (1998). Emotion in the perspective of an integrated nervous system. Brain Research Reviews, 26, 83-86.