Evidence map›Paper›PMID 28784785›Full record

ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2017

Effects of maternal investment, temperament, and cognition on guide dog success.

Emily E Bray, Mary D Sammel, Dorothy L Cheney, James A Serpell, Robert M Seyfarth

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 41 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
41citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

41 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Developmental programming in dogs.Biology of reproduction · 2026
    Review
  2. Article
  3. Article
  4. Article
  5. Article
  6. Article
  7. Article
  8. Article
  9. Early-life enrichment in American mink (Animal welfare (South Mimms, England) · 2025
    Article
  10. Article
  11. Article
  12. Article
  13. Article
  14. Article
  15. Review
  16. Article
  17. Review
  18. Article
  19. Canine Socialisation: A Narrative Systematic Review.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2022
    Review
  20. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors.

Emily E BrayDepartment of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104; ebray@email.arizona.edu cheney@sas.upenn.edu.
Mary D SammelDepartment of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Bioinformatics, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104.
Dorothy L CheneyDepartment of Biology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104; ebray@email.arizona.edu cheney@sas.upenn.edu.
James A SerpellDepartment of Clinical Studies, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104.
Robert M SeyfarthDepartment of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

A continuing debate in studies of social development in both humans and other animals is the extent to which early life experiences affect adult behavior. Also unclear are the relative contributions of cognitive skills ("intelligence") and temperament for successful outcomes. Guide dogs are particularly suited to research on these questions. To succeed as a guide dog, individuals must accomplish complex navigation and decision making without succumbing to distractions and unforeseen obstacles. Faced with these rigorous demands, only ∼70% of dogs that enter training ultimately achieve success. What predicts success as a guide dog? To address these questions, we followed 98 puppies from birth to adulthood. We found that high levels of overall maternal behavior were linked with a higher likelihood of program failure. Furthermore, mothers whose nursing style required greater effort by puppies were more likely to produce successful offspring, whereas mothers whose nursing style required less effort were more likely to produce offspring that failed. In young adults, an inability to solve a multistep task quickly, compounded with high levels of perseveration during the task, was associated with failure. Young adults that were released from the program also appeared more anxious, as indicated by a short latency to vocalize when faced with a novel object task. Our results suggest that both maternal nursing behavior and individual traits of cognition and temperament are associated with guide dog success.

Indexed as

Age FactorsAnimalsAnimals, NewbornBehavior, AnimalChoice BehaviorCognitionDogsFemaleHuman-Animal BondHumansMaleMaternal BehaviorPersons with Visual DisabilitiesTemperamentcognitionguide dogsmaternal stylenursing styletemperament

Identifiers

PMID28784785
PMCPMC5576795

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.