How many times do you need to experience something in order to really know it? Repetition is obviously vitally important for developing skills and for memory, but what about understanding? How many of us, for example, read a book over and over again? How many of us really absorb all there is to know? How many of us take surface knowledge and make it truly useful?

I once watched the same 10 minutes from the beginning of the film Don't Look Now about 15 times in a row! I had to write about it for an exam. The mission was to take that 10 minute segment and dissect and analyse it.

Your thoughts are made up of logic. Logic is everywhere; you cannot escape it.

We can think illogically, but reality will always follow the rules. When we think without logic, we are simply deluding ourselves. We can make logical errors and think we are getting away with it, but if it is important it will eventually cause us pain.

It isn't just con men that delude you if you don't understand logic; you delude yourself. I've made choices based on illogical conclusions which have cost me dearly. One of the biggest effects bad thinking had on me was when I was choosing what to do after college. My decision was to go to university and take a computing degree. My reasoning went like this:

Numerous studies have shown that IQ can be improved, but unfortunately they also tend to show an eventual fade out of the results. This means that if you gain, say, 10 IQ points, as soon as you stop training your IQ will gradually drop again until it reaches its original level. For this reason many believe the improvements in IQ are ultimately useless.

I strongly disagree. As an example, physical exercise suffers from the same 'fade out' effect. You lift weights and you put on muscle; you stop lifting weights and you lose muscle. You run and you get a stronger heart and lungs; you stop and they get weaker again. Does this mean physical exercise is pointless? Of course it doesn't.

The portable Nintendo DS gaming device now features a game called 'Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day!' Yep, it looks like the improve-your-brain revolution has now extended as far as the popular gaming market.

(It will apparently be known in Europe as 'Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training How Old Is Your Brain?' but in this article I'll refer to it as Brain Age.)

In Japan the game has slowly developed into a surprise hit. Aimed primarily towards the previously untapped senior market, it has entranced Japanese of all ages. Even Japanese hospitals are using the Brain Age game to keep elderly patients mentally agile.

As we gradually develop our understanding of good teaching practices, the top teachers are getting better. They are experimenting with ideas and theories to see what works, and as a result, their teaching is improving.

An example would be the idea that different students have different preferential senses that they think with. Someone with a preference for the kinaesthetic sense, for example, would learn better by doing an activity that explains a concept rather than having the concept explained to them.

As long as the teachers are intelligent about it and don't blindly follow a specific method the students will certainly benefit.

The brain left/right tendency is one of those psychophysical areas that have entered the popular domain. Like most things that enter the popular domain, controversy and myth touting soon manifest.

So what's the issue?

Well, as is always the case when something becomes popular, it necessarily gets simplified. Scientists don't like this simplification and see it as misinformation. The authors of popular books say it makes the information accessible and useable.

So should we listen to popular scientific theory?

Well, let's start by giving a quick synopsis of the simple theory...