Angel Ivy, age 16, of Henderson, Nev., for her question:

IS THERE SUCH A THING AS INTUITION?

Intuition is knowledge that comes to a person without any conscious remembering or reason on his part. Some people incorrectly call intuition "the sixth sense."

Scientific investigation has often shown that intuition is actually based on experience, particularly the experience of individuals with great sensitivity.

Then the person "knows" something, or believes he knows it, but cannot say where his knowledge came from. He calls this kind of sudden impression intuition, or a "hunch."

Intuition is sometimes the key in detective work, card games, military planning and, sometimes, scientific work.

Modern psychologists have devoted little study to intuition. This is chiefly because they like to use scientific methods and it is difficult to study intuition in this way.