The dynamic infrastructure of minddA hypothesis and some of its applications Florence Mihaela Singer * University of Ploiesti, Romania PsycINFO classification: 2820, Cognitive & perceptual development 3530, Curriculum & programs & Teaching methods Keywords: Cognitive architecture Dynamic infrastructure of mind Learning Operational categories abstract A mechanism underlying the computational properties of the cognitive architecture is construed based on a minimal list of oper- ational clusters. This general processing mechanism constitutes the dynamic infrastructure of mind (DIM). DIM consists in cate- gories of mental operations foundational for learning that contain inborn components called inner operations, which are self- developing in the interaction mind-environment. Within the DIM paradigm, the input cognitive systems are not domain specific or core-knowledge specific, they are operational specific and capa- ble of further developments that become domain specific while experiencing the environment. Arguments for this construal come from three sources: literature review, data collected through classroom observations, and a four-year experimental study of teaching and learning mathematics in primary grades. The out- comes of that experiment led to a methodology of learning based on activating the operational infrastructure of mind, which en- hances students’ flexibility of thinking and predicts the capacity to solve creatively a variety of problems. Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction I started this paper considering that a criterion to select models explaining the complexity of human learning can be the effectiveness of these models in stimulating learning. The relationship between explaining and stimulating learning has implicitly worked during the last three decades in building * G-ral Berthelot 38, 010169 Bucharest, Romania. Tel.: þ40 723 542900; fax: þ40 213 139 642. E-mail address: mikisinger@gmail.com Contents lists available at ScienceDirect New Ideas in Psychology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ newideapsych ARTICLE IN PRESS 0732-118X/$ – see front matter Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.newideapsych.2008.04.007 New Ideas in Psychology xxx (2008) 1–27 Please cite this article in press as: Singer, F.M., The dynamic infrastructure of minddA hypothesis and some of its applications, New Ideas in Psychology (2008), doi:10.1016/j.newideapsych.2008.04.007