They also assessed their physical and neurological health, and carried out tests - including memory, language and abstract reasoning - to evaluate their condition.

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They display a greater sense of urgency, risk -taking and abstract reasoning, and focus more on getting things done, with less of a tendency to hesitate, focus on small details, or follow external structure.

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People who were asked to reflect on their many past successes or a specific failure scored roughly 10% better on tests of mathematical ability, as well as verbal, spatial, and abstract reasoning, than those who reflected on either many past failures or a single specific success.

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One pertinent observation is that dolphins, whales and their kind have brains as anatomically complex as those of humans, and that these brains contain a particular type of nerve cell, known as a spindle cell, that in humans is associated with higher cognitive functions such as abstract reasoning.

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