Part II, The Four Senses of Self, Chapter 7, The Sense of a Subjective Self, II, Affect Attunement Summary and Analysis

Stern sees the sharing of affective states as the most important and clinically observable aspect of intersubjective relatedness. Infants become emotionally responsive to the perceptions of the emotional states of others. It is not clear how this occurs; most have concluded the imitation is not enough to get the process of the ground. Actual mind-reading must occur. Mothers often demonstrate this mind-reading, which the infant can sync with. Mothers start to add a new dimension of affect attunement to her interaction with her infant around seven to nine months. Stern then gives some examples, which are very comments.

Attunements give the impression that a sort of imitation was successful...