An Evaluation of The Piagetian and The Domian-Specific Research Programs

Which Way Cognitive Development?
An Evaluation of the Piagetian and the

Domain-Specific Research Programs
Daniel Roth, Michelle Slone and Reuven Dar

Tel Aviv University
Abstract. The article addresses the current status of Piaget’s theory as a

perspective on the nature of the human intellect and its development. As a
framework for discussion, we adopt Lakatos’s methodology of research
programs, which has been used by several authors to debate the role of
Piaget’s and other perspectives on cognitive development. The position we
advocate is that, in recent years, research in cognitive development has
undergone a profound change of perspective, in the course of which the
basic ontological commitments of the Piagetian approach have been
challenged and undermined. We argue that Piaget’s fundamental assump-
tions of overarching structures and the process of equilibration have been
superseded by a new perspective represented by a synthesis of domain-
specific and domain-general processes, which has become the dominant
impetus in the field.
KEY WORDS: cognitive development, domain-specific, equilibration,
Lakatos, Piaget, research program
One of the radical shifts in dominant research programs in psychology over

the past four decades has been the cognitive revolution which took place in
the late 1950s and early 1960s (Beilin, 1985). The discovery of Piaget by
American developmental psychologists was a landmark in the history of that
revolution, and there is little doubt that the area of cognitive development
would have evolved differently without his theory. One is hard pressed to
find current research reports or reviews in this area that do not cite Piaget’s
views as a reference point, and several researchers have adopted Piaget’s
model of the developmental stages as the general descriptive framework
within which they have elaborated their own ideas (e.g. Kohlberg, 1981).
But while it has certainly been among the most dominant theories in the area
of cognitive development, most psychologists would agree that Piaget’s
program has been rigorously criticized. His central theoretical accounts and
his methodology have been subjected to severe scrutiny, and many counter-
examples have emerged to his empirical findings. It is, therefore, not
Theory & Psychology Copyright © 2000 Sage Publications. Vol. 10(3): 353–373
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354 THEORY & PSYCHOLOGY 10(3)
surprising that the role of the Piagetian approach in current developmental

psychology has spurred rife debate.
The present article addresses the current status of Piaget’s theory as a
perspective on the nature of the human intellect and its development. The
position we will advocate is that, in recent years, research in cognitive
development has undergone a profound change of perspective in the course
of which the basic ontological commitments of the Piagetian approach have
been challenged and undermined. We will argue that Piaget’s fundamental
assumptions of overarching structures and the process of equilibration have
been challenged by the perspective of domain-specific or modular develop-
ment, which temporarily became a dominant impetus in the field. However,
the domain-specific approach has been hampered by its own difficulties,
which have undermined its coherence as a unifying theory of the nature
of cognitive development. Finally, we will suggest that a third program,
encompassing both domain-general processes and domain-specific con-
straints, is emerging as the real rival to the Piagetian program.
As a framework for discussion, we adopt Lakatos’s (1970) methodology
of research programs, which has been used by several authors to debate the
role of Piaget’s and other perspectives on cognitive development (Beilin,
1985; Gilbert & Swift, 1985; Niaz, 1993; Rowell, 1983). We open with a
brief synopsis of Lakatos’s approach and follow with a description of
the Piagetian enterprise within Lakatos’s framework. We then elaborate our
claim that Piaget’s theory, including its core assumptions, has been replaced
by a different view of the mind and its genesis.
Lakatos’s Methodology of Research Programs
Lakatos (1970) presented his ‘sophisticated methodological falsificationism’

as an improvement to Popper’s ‘naı̈ve falsificationism’, which had been
criticized as overly strict and inconsistent with the actual history of science.
In Popper’s view, in order for science to advance, theories must subject
themselves to critical empirical tests which may lead to their swift and final
refutation. But as Lakatos and others have observed, the history of science
shows that despite Popper’s imperative, theories never risk such critical
tests. In fact, they often persist in the face of multiple experimental
‘refutations’, and are finally rejected only when a better theory comes along.
Lakatos’s approach attempted to account for the tenacity of theories in the
face of experimental failures by making an essential distinction between
criticism of a theory and its rejection. In place of Popper’s focus on isolated
theories, Lakatos’s methodology involves research programs which consist
of two facets—a hard core, which is a set of basic theoretical assumptions
that are not subjected to refutation by empirical evidence, and a protective
belt of auxiliary assumptions which, unlike the hard core, may be modified
ROTH ET AL.: WHICH WAY COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT? 355
in response to empirical tests of the theory. The methodology of research

programs is guided by two heuristics which correspond to this structure: the
negative heuristic requires the scientist to establish and protect the hard core
of the research program by directing the empirical tests to the protective belt
of auxiliary theories, whereas the positive heuristic guides the construction
of the protective belt, defines problems, anticipates new facts and manages
anomalies. According to Lakatos’s methodology, and in opposition to that of
Popper, the scientist can legitimately accommodate anomalies encountered
by the research program without discarding it. As long as new predictions
are formulated and tested with some success, the program could be con-
sidered progressive in the face of apparent counter-evidence.
Owing to its relative tolerance to empirical anomalies and its rejection of
‘instant rationality’, Lakatos’s methodology has frequently been mobilized
to defend research programs in psychology and the state of psychology as a
science in general (e.g. Lapsley & Serlin, 1984; Serlin & Lapsley, 1985).
It is, therefore, not surprising that Lakatos’s philosophy has appealed to
authors who considered Piaget’s program to be progressive, despite the
numerous empirical and conceptual difficulties it has encountered over
the past decades. As Dar (1987) has shown, however, Lakatos was in fact
extremely critical of research programs and scientific practices in psycho-
logy, and clearly did not intend his methodology to be interpreted as
unconditionally tolerant. Specifically, he did not believe that a research
program should be sustained under any circumstances. Rather, he stated that
an objective to reject a program, as opposed to a socio-political reason, is
provided by a ‘rival research program which explains the previous success
of its rival and supersedes it by a further display of heuristic power’
(Lakatos, 1970, p. 155). Thus, Lakatos accepted the fundamental Popperian
idea of falsification in maintaining that a research program should be
abandoned if two conditions are met: (1) the program is degenerating—
failing to make new discoveries while crumbling under the weight of
cumulating anomalies; and (2) the program can be replaced by an alternative,
and progressive, research program. We shall argue that this is precisely the
current state of Piaget’s research program.
Piaget’s Research Program
Although several authors who have used Lakatos’s methodology to evaluate

Piaget’s research program differ in their conclusions regarding its scientific
status, their descriptions of the program’s structure, specifically their defini-
tions of its ‘hard core’ assumptions and ‘protective belt’ of auxiliary theories,
are very similar.
Piaget believed that cognitive development is represented by the pro-
gressive construction of a set of structures on the basis of continuous
interaction between the subject and the external world. Moreover, he

contended that the same set of structures, defined in logico-mathematical
terms, underlies cognitive growth across all tasks, situations and conceptual
domains. These structures emerge as a manifestation of the underlying
tendency of the organism toward equilibrium with the external world and
the principle of organization by which equilibrium is maintained within the
organism. Specifically, this tendency toward equilibrium may be construed
as the attempt of the organism to assimilate incoming information from the
external world into the existing cognitive structures and, if this fails, to
accommodate by changing the organization of the cognitive structures to
attain congruence with the experiences imposed by external reality. These
principles of autoregulation of the structures, which Piaget referred to as
‘equilibration’, determine intellectual developmental achievements across
all content domains.
Thus, in all his formulations, Piaget considered the inherent, inborn
tendency toward self-regulation to underlie the attempt at equilibration by
the entire cognitive system, an attempt that gives rise to the production of
new operational structures. The construction and development of the cog-
nitive structures is the consequence of the interaction between the subject
and the objects in the external world. Thereby, knowledge is constructed by
means of interaction with the physical world and the internalization of this
interaction to create a mental representation of the data of experience.
Increasing interaction, which results in assimilation of stimuli and accom-
modation by the structures, makes manifest definable and universal stages of
cognitive development. These stages are identifiable by the form of logical
reasoning evident in the child’s interpretation of the physical world, a form
which reflects the nature of the organization of the cognitive structures at
that point in development.
According to Rowell (1983), ‘the hard core of the Piagetian program is
the notion of equilibration, a self-regulating mechanism that governs the
development of intelligence within the individual’ (p. 62). Rowell claimed
that the concept of equilibration was expected to become a principal
theoretical construct which would direct further research in developmental
psychology. He concluded that ‘when viewed as a research program in the
Lakatosian sense, there is good reason to continue the development of the
concept of equilibration, and to anticipate growth in its precision, testability
and explanatory power’ (p. 70).
Lakatos’s view of science was adopted also by Beilin (1985) to discuss
the status of Piaget’s research program. He argued that stage and structure
are core elements of Piaget’s theory, and that unrevokable counter-evidence
to either would suggest the inviability of the theory. Beilin conceded that the
program has been subjected to severe attack from various functionalist
theories of development. Concurrently, he predicted a future synthesis of
Piaget’s program with functionalism, a synthesis which would retain the

hard core of equilibration.
Gilbert and Swift (1985), who analyzed the Piagetian and the Alternative
Conceptions approaches from a Lakatosian perspective, also took ‘Piaget’s
hypothetical construct of equilibration and the few essential features of
epigenesis to constitute the hard core of the Piagetian School research
program’, stating that ‘alteration or rejection of either of these two notions
would result in participation in a different research program’ (p. 687). They
considered Piaget’s stage theory of intellectual development to constitute the
program’s protective belt, its empirically testable and potentially refutable
part. Unlike Rowell and Beilin, Gilbert and Swift concluded that the
Piagetian program was degenerating and in the process of being replaced by
the Alternative Conceptions Movement—a collection of allied research
endeavors based on the notion that the child has theories about the operation
of the physical world which are constantly being tested, revised and inte-
grated into the existing conceptual framework. Until the present time,
however, the Alternative Conceptions Movement has remained confined to
the sphere of science education, where, indeed, it has become one of the
leading paradigms. Despite its contribution in the area of science education,
it has not succeeded in replacing Piaget’s encompassing epistemology as an
explanation of cognitive development.
Recently, Niaz (1993) also took the position that equilibration is the
Lakatosian hard core of Piaget’s program, whereas the developmental stages
belong to the positive heuristic, or protective belt, of the program. Niaz
asserted, congruent with our view, that the Alternative Conceptions Move-
ment has failed to replace Piaget’s program. Instead, he posited, in Lakatos’s
terminology, a ‘progressive problemshift’ between Piaget’s program and
Pascual-Leone’s (1987) theory of constructive operators, which adopts a
sophisticated computational approach in the explication of cognitive develop-
mental change. Niaz postulated this latter program as a rival program to
Piaget’s, and contended that whereas Pascual-Leone’s program has main-
tained Piaget’s hard core of equilibration, it has shown better explanatory
power. In our view, this claim is just as untenable as Gilbert and Swift’s
claim regarding the Alternative Conceptions Movement. Even if one accepts
the presumed explanatory power of Pascual-Leone’s theory, it has thus far
failed to develop into a broad research program and to stimulate far-reaching
research in its own right.
In conclusion, in the past two decades, several authors have examined
Piaget’s theory through the perspective of Lakatos’s methodology of research
programs. Strikingly, they have all considered the concept of equilibration to
be the ‘hard core’ of the Piagetian research program and the developmental
stages as its protective belt. We join this consensus, and, in fact, will buttress
it; however, we shall offer different conclusions from those advanced by our
predecessors. First, we attempt to show that Piaget’s program can no longer
be considered progressive. Second, we suggest that one of the significant

emergent rivals to Piaget’s program in the study of cognitive development
has been the domain-specific model of intellectual development. However,
we argue that this model has failed to supersede the Piagetian program as
a result of internal incoherence as a program in its own right, lacking
the capacity to generate an alternate unified perspective of the nature of
cognitive development. Third, we suggest that this unified explanation holds
more promise of being found in a synthesizing framework which encom-
passes structural domain-general processes and domain-specific principles.
Such a program, presently nascent, could represent a real and rich alternative
to the Piagetian program.
In debating the claim that Kohlberg’s research program of moral develop-
ment has degenerated, as it failed to accommodate counter-examples, Lapsley
and Serlin (1984) argued that, according to Lakatos, one should distinguish
between criticism of a theory and its abandonment. In Lakatos’s view,
refuting evidence cannot by itself falsify a theory because such evidence is
never directed at the ‘hard core’ of the theory. Rather, as directed by the
negative heuristic, the theory’s auxiliary assumptions bear the brunt of
the tests. In discussing the apparent counter-examples to Kohlberg’s stage
model of moral development, Lapsley and Serlin state that ‘it is one thing
indeed to ascribe a stage concept to the hard core of the cognitive develop-
mental approach, and quite another to say what stage model best conceptual-
izes developmental change’ (p. 163). Hence, the characterization of the stage
model is part of the positive heuristic, not of the hard core, and, in Lakatos’s
view, it cannot be claimed that a program has degenerated in the face of
anomalies when its hard core has not been rejected. The conclusion from
Lapsley and Serlin’s analysis, then, is that when claiming that a research
program has degenerated, one should carefully distinguish the hard core of a
research program from its protective belt of auxiliary assumptions.
Thus, to support our claim that Piaget’s program has degenerated, we
shall first examine challenges to Piaget’s stage theory, the protective belt
of his program. We will then elucidate further the hard core of Piaget’s
program, and argue that this hard core has, in fact, been challenged by recent
theoretical developments, especially by domain-specific conceptualizations
of the nature of the intellect.
Challenges to the Protective Belt of Piaget’s Program
In recent years, a corpus of new empirical evidence has accumulated which

counters numerous propositions within the protective belt of Piaget’s theory.
Carey (1985) summarized this research effort in the following words,
. . . the denial [of Piaget’s claims] has always taken the same form: a
positive demonstration that pre-school children have the representational or
the computational capacity in question. Then, a second part of the denial is

coming up with an alternative explanation for the Piagetian phenomena
that had previously been taken as evidence that the young child lacked the
capacity in question. (p. 143)
The first part of this denial of Piaget’s claims is exemplified by new

paradigms for studying infancy which have gravely undermined Piaget’s
conception of the sensorimotor infant and the young child. Studies focusing
on the early capabilities of very young infants have shown that, in contrast to
Piaget’s description, infants as young as 5 months of age understand that
objects continue to exist when hidden (Baillargeon, 1987). Subsequent
studies have revealed the complexity of the young infant’s conception of
objects as solid entities (Spelke, 1991), and have provided an alternative
explanation for Piaget’s (1952) original demonstration according to which
infants under the age of 7–8 months do not search for hidden objects
(Baillargeon, Graber, Devos, & Black, 1990). Other studies have shown that,
under certain conditions, even young preschoolers behave in a non-egocentric
manner (Flavell, 1977; Wimmer & Perner, 1983), succeed in conservation
tasks, and integrate complex information (Donaldson, 1978).
Pertaining to the second part of the denial of Piaget’s claims, Bryant and
Trabasso (1971) argued that a major flaw in Piaget’s theoretical construction
was that he neither considered nor attempted to exclude alternative inter-
pretations of his data. Most of his demonstrations, though successfully
replicated, have subsequently been afforded alternative explanations, based
on task-specific factors or on the limitations of children’s cognitive resources,
such as memory (Byrant & Trabasso, 1971). Consequently, close inspection
of the evidence, as well as the consideration of subtle changes in the
experimental conditions, have induced results that are inconsistent with
Piaget’s original conjectures. A notable example is Piaget’s well-known
research on conservation—the invariance of quantity despite transformations
in its physical appearance. Piaget demonstrated that young children at the
preoperational stage judge identical quantities to be unequal, consequential
to certain transformations which have modified their appearance. This result
led him to conclude that children at this cognitive developmental stage
have not attained the operations of reversibility or reciprocity which would
enable them to induce the invariance of quantity by mentally reversing the
permutation (Piaget, 1970). In contrast to this explanation, McGarrigle and
Donaldson (1973) have suggested that the child may be misled by irrelevant
factors in the experimental design. Specifically, the perception of the intent
of an authoritative experimenter in deliberately altering the appearance
of the quantities may steer the child’s judgment of the equality of the
quantities. In order to test this assumption, they designed an experiment in
which a ‘naughty’ teddy accidentally transformed the appearance of the
quantities. The results revealed that even children aged 4 correctly judged
the invariance of quantity in this version, in contrast to their failure in the

traditional conservation tasks.
Elucidating the Hard Core of the Piagetian Program
As discussed above, authors who have applied Lakatos’s methodology to the

Piagetian program have converged on the concept of equilibration as the
latter’s hard core. A fundamental aspect of equilibration is the integration it
imposes on the cognitive structures into a unified medium, or in Piaget’s
(1952) words, ‘the norms of coherence and unity of logical thought which
translate this perpetual effort of intellectual totalities toward equilibrium’
(p. 11). Indeed, Piaget considered the developmental stages to be the overtly
manifest consequence of this process of integration.
Thus, the notion of equilibration, as originally postulated by Piaget, is not
merely a theoretical construct proposed to explain cognitive development. It
entails a set of basic ontological commitments which are not subject to
empirical test, and therefore, as we have shown earlier, specify the ‘hard core’
of Piaget’s research program. Our claim is that the change in perspective of
cognitive development over the past two decades consists primarily of a
rejection of this set of ontological commitments, or hard core, of the
Piagetian program. To support this claim, it is necessary to outline our view
of the fundamental commitments entailed by the notion of equilibration.
It is well established that Piaget did not develop his psychological theory
for its own sake but as a means to the end of finding an adequate level of
description, at the interface between biology and philosophy. Accordingly,
Piaget termed his theory ‘genetic epistemology’, referring to the study of the
genesis of knowledge. Thus, the Piagetian impetus reflected a focus of
interest on general problems of knowledge in its various manifestations in
nature, rather than merely on its psychological aspects. In addition to his
study of human intelligence and its origins, Piaget had an avid interest in the
history of scientific knowledge (Piaget & Garcia, 1974) and in general
biological questions concerning the adaptation of the organism to its
environment. The basic premise behind this ambitious program was the
belief that a single systematic theory of knowledge could be advanced since
Piaget believed that knowledge in all its forms is organized and develops
according to the same set of principles.
In his search for unity in nature and the human mind, Piaget presented an
image of a homogeneous mind, consistently operating at a uniform level
of complexity and cognitive developmental maturity, and possessing a
distinctive character, style, quality and capacity in all its functioning
(Flavell, 1982). Piaget’s paradigm assigns a central role to the tendency
of the psyche toward organization and adaptation in an attempt to attain
equilibrium both internally and in interaction with the realities of the external
world. This impetus underlying intellectual development is embraced by the

concept of equilibration.
The history of Piaget’s thinking about equilibration has been somewhat
complex. His earlier conceptualization, prior to 1950, set out to state a
specific theory of equilibration in probabilistic terms. As such, it invoked
equilibration as one of the four major factors, together with maturation,
physical experience and social influences, which contribute to cognitive
development. After 1950, however, Piaget rejected his earlier probabilistic
model as inadequate and set out to reexamine the entire issue. The most
comprehensive statement of the connection between equilibration and self-
organization and of its place in propelling development was presented in
‘The Equilibration of Cognitive Structures’ (Piaget, 1985). In this work, he
elucidated three different forms of equilibration. First, equilibration occurs
between action schemes and external objects by means of assimilation and
accommodation. Second, equilibration occurs among various subsystems of
the total system through reciprocal assimilation and accommodation of the
respective schemes to one another. Third, equilibration occurs between
subsystems and the total system of which they are a part through the
simultaneous differentiation of the parts and their integration into the whole.
This formulation brought to the fore the notions of action, cognitive conflict
and resolution as fundamental topics of debate within the theory.
In this way, equilibration, which entails constant organization and adapta-
tion, gives rise to the cognitive structures which enable and determine the
interpretation of the stimuli of the environment. A pivotal feature of the
cognitive structures is their general overarching nature and their domain-free
application. This attitude toward the nature of the mind is more fundamental
to the Piagetian theory than the details of the particular theory he proposed.
Support for this claim comes from the fact that the same approach to the
structure of the mind has been adopted and expanded by earlier, as well as
later, neo-Piagetian schools. These schools share the fundamental commit-
ment, which Piaget originally formulated, to the organization of the cognitive
apparatus in terms of general structures which enable the interpretation of
the data of experience in different ways at various stages of development.
The Challenge to the Piagetian Program’s Hard Core
We have shown that the Piagetian enterprise is characterized by cer-

tain ontological, quasi-metaphysical commitments that underlie the actual
research. These commitments are the hard core of Piaget’s program, the
ground from which specific theories, such as Piaget’s own theory of cog-
nitive development, have sprung. Our thesis in this article is that, in
historical perspective, this hard core of Piaget’s program has been gravely
challenged. This challenge has taken the form of direct and explicit criticism
of the fundamental commitments of the program, in conjunction with an

intrinsic modification in the view of the architecture of the human mind.
In elucidating this thesis, the Chomsky–Piaget debate (Piattelli-Palmirini,
1980), which is a landmark in the history of developmental psychology,
serves as an example of an explicit and direct challenge to the core
assumptions of the Piagetian program. In this debate, Chomsky and other
prominent scholars criticized Piaget and his proponents for their con-
structivist approach in general, via an appraisal of the flaws inherent to the
theory, specifically with regard to language development. Piaget maintained
that language is a special case of a domain-general ‘semiotic function’,
which includes the ability to construe mental images and to perform other
symbolic activities. This view, and in particular the assumption that lan-
guage emerges from, and depends on a particular level of development of,
the cognitive structures, was criticized by some of Piaget’s opponents (such
as Fodor and Chomsky himself). These opponents argued forcefully that
language is a special and well-differentiated cognitive capacity, operating
and developing according to unique principles, which were later specified in
terms of parameter setting (Williams & Roeper, 1987). This view, which
originated from Chomsky’s (1957, 1965) theory of grammar, has inspired
ongoing research in language acquisition (e.g. Chien & Wexler, 1990). In
addition to their belief in the domain-specificity of language and its
independence of general cognition, proponents of this tradition also adhere
to the belief that the principles of language are innately specific and not
constructed by interaction with the environment.
The Chomsky–Piaget debate was not resolved at the level of an incontest-
able victory to either side. Both Piaget’s and Chomsky’s perspectives
continued to spur lively consideration and critical examination. However,
the arguments for the innate nature and the domain-specificity of language
raise serious challenges to Piaget’s position regarding the development of
content-free cognitive structures as well as to his fundamental philosophy of
constructivism—two commitments which, as we have argued, are essential
ingredients of the Piagetian hard core.
Over the lengthy period of Piaget’s exposition and refinement of his
theory, he himself noted variations in children’s performance with alterations
in material or procedure. He also did not specifically preclude age variation
or precocious performance among children. However, he was never con-
vinced that these empirical challenges demanded a fundamental shift in
perspective according to which this domain-specific wealth became the basis
for an explanation of cognitive development.
In light of empirical variabilities, Piaget’s advocates, too, have restricted
the argument to support for some broad concepts of the theory rather than
dealing with the minutiae of empirical inconsistencies. For example, the
grandeur of equilibration theory is celebrated more for the questions it was
meant to answer—the generativity of intelligence and its progressive rigor—
rather than the specific models it yielded (Chapman, 1988). Even among
adherents who accepted most of Piaget’s underlying assumptions about
knowledge and its derivation, there has been some dissatisfaction with
certain aspects of the theory. Those aspects which raised particular concern
were the lack of encompassing treatment of stage transition (Pascual-Leone,
1976), the absence of sufficient consideration of differential performance
factors across different contexts (Overton, 1990), and the lack of account of
individual differences (Pascual-Leone, 1976). The theme running through
these criticisms was that that the theory provided a view of stage-transition
cognitive developmental process that is overly global and incomplete.
Nonetheless, Piaget’s awareness of the flaws in his theory and attempts by
him to correct them in later writings, or by his adherents to respond to the
challenges, have been unable to halt the search for a different perspective of
cognitive development. An exemplary statement of this pivotal change in
orientation has been made by Flavell (1982):
Since the ascendancy of Piagetian developmental psychology we have
come to think of the child’s cognitive growth as made up of a network of
interwoven, multiply interconnected developmental paths. It is possible,
however, that a surprisingly large number of developments may proceed
independently of one another, and that the maturity level of the child’s
thinking may consequently be quite uneven and unequal across these
independent developments. (p. 3)
Research in the area of cognitive development has been conceived as
casting a long shadow of doubt over Piaget’s view of the mind as a
‘homogeneous’ medium, as inconsistencies between his theoretical predic-
tions and diverse empirical findings have accumulated. Recent experimental
results have revealed that many developmental changes may occur on a
domain-specific basis (Keil, 1989). A major impetus in current research in
cognitive development reflects a ‘modular’ image of the human mind,
resulting in a change of perspective from a belief in a homogeneous mind
to more specific accounts of human development. From a historical per-
spective, it would seem that attempts by Piaget and his adherents have not
been sufficiently convincing to prevent the establishment of alternate con-
ceptualizations. For example, Carey (1990) stated that:
It now seems unlikely that the grand simplifying description of universal
developmental stages that Piaget proposed is correct—especially if the
stages are interpreted as reflecting domain-general changes . . . it seems
that cognitive development is mainly the result of acquiring knowledge in
particular knowledge domains. (p. 162)
This statement, we suggest, embodies a rejection of the Piagetian hard
core since there are a series of fundamental propositions encompassed in
the notion of equilibration that make it inconsistent with the existence of
domain-specific knowledge. First, the inevitable outcome of the process of
equilibration, in Piaget’s formulation, is toward a lesser degree of immediacy

and specificity in behavior. This becomes, in intellectual development, a
process of increased reflection, an interiorization of action that transforms
coordinated external actions into systems of internal, reversible operations.
The focus of a theory of domain-specific knowledge converges, most
importantly, on the immediacy and specificity of knowledge within par-
ticular domains.
Second, the reciprocal accommodation of a greater number of subschemes
within a total system expands the class of assimilable elements. This
increases the probability that new subsystems will be formed and that these,
in turn, will become integrated into the total system. In this way, one of the
fundamental characteristics of the concept of equilibration, which implies
interiorization, is that it leads to an increasing dissociation of the general
forms of behavior from general content. The focus of domain-specific
knowledge presumes the fundamental embedding of knowledge in specific
content. In a domain-specific model, the notion of content-free knowledge is
incongruent with the focus.
Third, equilibration presumes a certain coherence and structure in the total
system. Uneven development contradicts the notion of structure since, in this
model, it is difficult to explain the existence of advanced logical knowledge
in one area alongside primitive knowledge characteristic of another level of
logic in a different area.
Piaget was acutely aware of this apparent contradiction and invested
energies in resolving it. The major concept he invoked to address uneven
development was that of décalage. In the Piagetian model, horizontal
décalage refers to the fact that within a given structurally defined level, the
same structure may appear at different ages with respect to different con-
tents. The presence of décalages represents a thorny issue in the theory since
the operations involved in a given structure are presumed to be formally the
same irrespective of particular content. Piaget’s solution to the issue was to
assume that some asynchrony could be expected in development since the
operations characterizing different content areas may present different kinds
of difficulties or ‘resistances’ with respect to their organization. Piaget felt
that the existence of horizontal décalage did not contradict his theory since
the operations involved may be functionally distinct, even if they are
formally analogous. This point is contrary to many subsequent inter-
pretations of Piagetian theory and the issue of asynchrony was picked up
most powerfully by the content-bound theories of intellectual development.
This sets the stage for the emergence of an alternate perspective by the
domain-specific research program. Indeed, in some ways, the evaluation of
Piaget’s program in Lakatos’s framework parallels aspects of Piaget’s theory
itself. The theory has attempted to assimilate new information and later
to accommodate unassimilable information; but the accretion of new and
contradictory information has led to conflict and eventually to the emergence
of a new structure. We now turn to an examination of this new structure and

its capacity to replace the Piagetian program in offering a coherent theory of
cognitive development.
The Domain-Specific Conceptualization: Advantages and

Limitations
In contradistinction to Piaget’s conception of the nature of the intellect,

according to which structural changes occur synchronously across different
domains, recent years have witnessed the rise of a burgeoning area of
research which underlines the domain-specific nature of cognitive develop-
ment. According to this model, the development of knowledge is inextric-
ably yoked to the specific content domain in which it occurs. The growth of
knowledge is neither unilinear, derivational on the basis of logic alone, nor
applicative across all contexts. Mastery of one task does not assure mastery
of other tasks, even if, according to the Piagetian model, they are assumed
to be governed by the same formal principles. Rather, knowledge and skill
are considered to be domain-specific and, consequently, uneven in their
accretion and not automatically transferable. This view is buttressed by data
suggesting that knowledge is not contemporaneously and equally accessible
for all contents (Chi, 1978) and that development may follow quite dif-
ferent routes in different content domains (Demetriou & Efklides, 1985;
Feldman, 1980).
A domain is loosely defined as a set of representations relating to a
specific area of knowledge, such as physics, mathematics or language. The
infant is considered to have domain-specific predispositions which enable
the processing of diverse inputs, and subsequent knowledge acquisition is
guided by domain-specific principles (Gelman, 1990; Spelke, 1991). A
necessary consequence of this perspective is its diametric opposition to the
hard core of Piaget’s program: the notion of content-free overarching
cognitive structures which develop via a process of equilibration.
Indeed, the domain-specific perspective enables the answering of ques-
tions which Piaget’s theory has been unable to address. Prominent among
these issues are the thorny problems of across-domain dissociation and
horizontal décalage—the two forms of non-synchronous acquisition of
concepts that, according to Piaget, are based on the same operatory structure
(Inhelder, Sinclair, & Bovet, 1974).
It is no longer possible to discount the challenge which the issue of
across-domain dissociation poses to the Piagetian program. Substantial evi-
dence of across-domain dissociation is supported by compelling empirical
findings which have emerged over recent years in the area of developmental
neuropsychology. These findings bring to light the existence of uneven
cognitive profiles and the sparing or impairing of isolated domains of
knowledge as a result of brain or functional syndromes (Bellugi, Bihrle, &

Corina, 1991; Hermelin & O’Connor, 1986) or brain damage (Marshall,
1984; Shallice, 1988). One of the implications from this evidence is that
knowledge may constitute nothing more than a heterogeneous conglomerate
of content domains.
Piaget’s theory, based on a domain-general view of development, has
inadequate explanatory power to interpret these findings. Certainly, Piaget
himself and his adherents mounted a series of defenses as these challenges to
his theory began to emerge. The progression of Piaget’s own theory and the
continuing work of the Genevan group highlight the increasing focus
afforded to the functional aspects of the theory. Beilin (1985) claims that
these functional aspects of the theory have tended to be underestimated.
Despite the primary focus of the theory on structure, Piaget considered
structure and function to be intimately linked. In his theory, the essence of
function lies in the concept of assimilation. He writes, ‘assimilation is the
functional aspect of structure-formation, intervening in each particular case
of constructive activity, but sooner or later leading to the mutual association
of structures to one another, and so establishing even more intricate inter-
structural connections’ (Piaget, 1970, p. 107). Thus, function refers both to
part of the dialectic with the external world and to the merging of internal
structures, whereby the system is strengthened and extended. In this duality,
Piaget offers some explanation for the accumulation of discrete items or
sections of knowledge, which might be functionally uneven, but are fused
with the setting up of internal correspondences and interconnections that
give rise to the structure. The increasing focus on function gave rise to
extensive research on strategies in the process of concept acquisition
(Inhelder et al., 1974), procedural knowledge (Inhelder & Piaget, 1980) and
semilogical thought in the preoperational stage (Piaget, Grize, Szeminska,
& Bang, 1977). Thus, the earlier neo-Piagetian school followed Piaget’s
original proposals and focused its research efforts on problem-solving as a
major process responsible for mental growth across all domains (Inhelder
et al., 1974). However, the later neo-Piagetian approach, represented mainly
by Case (1978), Pascual-Leone (1976) and others, broke away still further to
fit in more snugly with accumulating empirical evidence. These approaches
are characterized mainly by an attempt to explain development by apply-
ing the information-processing approach, which peaked approximately two
decades ago. This approach accounts for the postulated uniformity of mind by
explaining cognitive development as an increase in information-processing or
‘working memory’ capacity.
However, it is precisely at the point of failure of the Piagetian program
that the domain-specific program finds its strength, as its edifice lies on
the assumption of domain-specific innate predispositions, which enable the
processing of specific inputs. Moreover, it offers an explanation of cognitive
development in which content is inextricably bound to knowledge.
However, the pivotal question to be raised is whether the current status of

the domain-specific program may be viewed as a set of findings which
coalesce into a coherent account of the nature of intellectual development. If
this program is restricted to domain-specificity and modularity, with no
theoretical commitments beyond these fundamentals, it cannot provide a
unifying conceptualization about the nature of cognitive development.
Cognitive development may indeed proceed along a variety of develop-
mental lines, with uneven profiles yoked to specific content domains.
However, this merely integrates a conglomerate of research evidence which
challenges aspects of the Piagetian program, without constituting a unified
and coherent program in its own right.
Furthermore, although the domain-specific approach provides an explana-
tion of across-domain dissociation, its struggle lies in explaining the data
which are the scaffolding of the Piagetian program, namely across-domain
association. The challenge is to provide an account of cognitive develop-
ment which encompasses the generalization and plasticity of knowledge
development across domains. Without invoking the assumption of central
overarching structures, the domain-specific program must determine whether
there is any form of generalization across domains or whether knowledge
must be constructed afresh for each domain, and it must elucidate the
mechanisms underlying both of these two conditions. If the domain-specific
program is unable to address this requirement, it loses its promise of
superseding the Piagetian program and merely exchanges the difficulties of
the Piagetian program with domain dissociation for difficulties with domain
association.
Indeed, thus far the domain-specific program has not offered a suitable
solution and it seems unlikely that it will be able to do so without salvaging
some aspects of Piaget’s theory, particularly the notion of domain-general
processes. In fact, it may turn out to be misguided to frame the question of
the nature of cognitive development in terms of the superiority of the
domain-specific approach over that of the domain-general approach. In line
with Sternberg (1989), the more fruitful approach may be one which casts
the issue into a question of which modes of representation and processing
are domain-specific and which are domain-general, what is their nature and
what stimulates or constrains their interaction.
A New Research Program
We posit that, in light of these shortcomings, the real rival of the Piagetian
program is a nascent program hinted at in Sternberg’s (1989) statement,
which represents an amalgam of recognition of structural domain-general
processes and domain-specific predispositions and constraints. Piaget’s
constructivism is not necessarily incompatible with domain-specific pre-

dispositions which entail constraints on the way in which the mind functions
as a self-organizing, self-redescribing system. Invoking domain-specific
constraints on development does not necessarily negate domain-general
mechanisms, such as inferential processes, representations and alterations
in representation, nor does it preclude across-the-board domain-general
changes.
How could cognitive development be conceptualized in this new frame-
work? In terms of basic premises, there is the general consensus that con-
cepts are always domain-specific, but their mobilization is dependent on
procedures and strategies, which are temporally arranged sets of procedures
(Anderson, 1990; Sternberg, 1985). Procedures originate as domain-specific
and are acquired in response to specific environmental demands. In certain
circumstances, analogies are perceived between prior and new contexts, and
previously domain-specific procedures become mapped to new domains
(Anderson, 1993; Ceci, 1990). Thus, procedures may be either domain-
specific or domain-general. This approach posits that most conceptual
knowledge, procedures and strategies are constructed in response to environ-
mental demands and that new knowledge is assimilated into existing
knowledge (Case, 1992).
Individuals who have few domain-specific concepts, domain-specific or
domain-general procedures or strategies, are considered to be novices in that
field, whereas individuals who possess many concepts, procedures and
strategies are considered to be experts (Chi, Hutchinson, & Robin, 1989).
Experts and novices differ in the accuracy, flexibility, elaborateness and
coherence of their conceptual knowledge and the types of procedures
and strategies they utilize (Chi et al., 1989).
The development of intellectual ability may be viewed as a progression
from being a novice status to gaining expertise within a delimited field of
knowledge (Brown & DeLoach, 1978). The reason that children acquire
different areas of expertise, at different rates, may be a function of differential
foci of personal interest and curiosity, varying predispositional capacities
in the processing of information, and different availability of contents
presented to children by the environment (Keil, 1991). This would give rise
to the attainment of uneven or unequal amounts and types of knowledge and
skills across different domains. In addition, perceived similarities between
domains, mapping of prior knowledge onto new domains, and assimilation
of new concepts, procedures and strategies into existing knowledge would
yield considerable across-domain generalization.
The new model might do well to begin by delineating points of agreement
between neo-Piagetian theory and the domain-specific approach and then
search for ways to reframe and integrate these into a broader conception.
There are some major points of agreement which could serve as a focus for
this enterprise. These include the notion that many of the processes involved
in the structural transformation do not operate on the entire set of structures,

but rather on individual structures that children must assemble in each
separate domain in which they function. A second point is that a common
constraint exists on the rate of transformation and that this will limit the
speed of development across all domains. This constraint could be construed
as the child’s processing capacity, which is limited at birth and grows with
age. A sense of order and clarity will have to be brought to the field both for
the non-universal aspects of cognitive development and for the transforma-
tion process in order to coalesce these different postulations into a coherent
position. An approach to this could begin with a large-scale and systematic
comparison and evaluation of current formulations.
The rich network of interlocking research described above has promul-
gated a relatively cogent statement of cognitive development. The accretion
of data indicates a progression from a discovery phase, characterized by the
generation and testing of new hypotheses about cognitive development, to a
confirmatory phase, characterized by the integration of disparate findings
into an organized research program. The hard core of this program, in
Lakatos’s terminology, is the fundamental assumption that underlying
cognitive development is an intricate interaction of domain-general and
domain-specific representations and processes.
According to Lakatos, the positive heuristic of a research program must
define the problems with which it has to struggle in the future. Supposition
of this new synthesis as a progressive research program entails the character-
ization of its positive heuristic, with its alternative perspective on the nature
of intellectual development. In this regard, the new program faces an
ambitious undertaking.
One of the major perceived strengths of Piaget’s theory was its ability to
illuminate the universals of cognitive development, whereas the domain-
specific approach has been concerned primarily with the context-bound
aspects of intelligence. Further, Piaget was less explicit about the process of
structural transformation than he was about the nature of the cognitive
structures. Almost all the domain-specific theorists have attempted to pro-
vide a more detailed explanation of the transformation process and these
have spurred a vast variety of postulations suggesting quite different psycho-
logical mechanisms. A positive heuristic of the emergent program must
entail an explication of the boundaries of domains, the possibility of micro-
domains within larger content domains, and the nature of the relations
and representational links between microdomains and domains and across
domains.
Whereas Piaget posits only an innate set of sensory reflexes and some
functional processes, that is, equilibration, assimilation and accommodation,
the strength of this new perspective lies in its premise of innate pre-
dispositions and subsequent learning principles which endow the infant with
extensive capacities for knowledge acquisition (Gelman, 1990), while en-

compassing the enormity of the creativity, flexibility and plasticity of the
human mind in its manipulation of knowledge. However, the interaction
between the details of generalization across domains and structural processes
must be mapped out. Only a rudimentary draft of this intricate interplay has
thus far been sketched.
The new perspective has yet to grapple with the question of how children
are active participants in the construction of their own knowledge. Indeed,
the program has not come up with a consistent, coherent account of the way
in which representations may develop by means of interaction with the
environment.
The time may be ripe for the creation of a superordinate theory which will
integrate the corpus of scientific knowledge that has accrued in a way which
positions both the macro- and micro-processes firmly into the puzzle. In
conclusion, we suggest that under the weight of accumulating evidence,
Piaget’s premise of content-free structural stages governed by mechanisms
of equilibration can no longer constitute a basis for a viable research pro-
gram. However, an interpretative framework which addresses the complexity
of cognitive development could continue to draw inspiration from Piaget’s
stance with regard to the rich and constructive interaction between child and
environment and domain-general processes, amalgamated with new details
of domain-specific predispositions, processes and constraints.
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Daniel Roth died of brain cancer in 1993 at the age of 31, and received
his Ph.D. from Tel Aviv University posthumously. He wrote a preliminary
version of this article for a graduate seminar with Reuven Dar on philo-
sophy of science and psychology. Michelle Slone received her Ph.D.
from Tel Aviv University in developmental psychology, and her main
interests are in the area of cognitive and emotional development. Reuven
Dar received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Among
his interests are philosophical and methodological controversies in psycho-
logy. All correspondence to be addressed to Michelle Slone. Address:
Department of Psychology, Tel Aviv University. Tel Aviv 69978, Israel.
[email: mich@freud.tau.ac.il]

An Evaluation of The Piagetian and The Domian-Specific Research Programs

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Which Way Cognitive Development?

An Evaluation of the Piagetian and the

Daniel Roth, Michelle Slone and Reuven Dar

Abstract. The article addresses the current status of Piaget’s theory as a

One of the radical shifts in dominant research programs in psychology over

surprising that the role of the Piagetian approach in current developmental

Lakatos’s Methodology of Research Programs

Lakatos (1970) presented his ‘sophisticated methodological falsificationism’

in response to empirical tests of the theory. The methodology of research

Piaget’s Research Program

Although several authors who have used Lakatos’s methodology to evaluate

interaction between the subject and the external world. Moreover, he

Piaget’s program with functionalism, a synthesis which would retain the

be considered progressive. Second, we suggest that one of the significant

Challenges to the Protective Belt of Piaget’s Program

In recent years, a corpus of new empirical evidence has accumulated which

the computational capacity in question. Then, a second part of the denial is

The first part of this denial of Piaget’s claims is exemplified by new

the invariance of quantity in this version, in contrast to their failure in the

Elucidating the Hard Core of the Piagetian Program

As discussed above, authors who have applied Lakatos’s methodology to the

world. This impetus underlying intellectual development is embraced by the

The Challenge to the Piagetian Program’s Hard Core

We have shown that the Piagetian enterprise is characterized by cer-

of the fundamental commitments of the program, in conjunction with an

equilibration, in Piaget’s formulation, is toward a lesser degree of immediacy

of a new structure. We now turn to an examination of this new structure and

The Domain-Specific Conceptualization: Advantages and

In contradistinction to Piaget’s conception of the nature of the intellect,

knowledge as a result of brain or functional syndromes (Bellugi, Bihrle, &

However, the pivotal question to be raised is whether the current status of

A New Research Program

constructivism is not necessarily incompatible with domain-specific pre-

in the structural transformation do not operate on the entire set of structures,

extensive capacities for knowledge acquisition (Gelman, 1990), while en-

Carey, S. (1990). Cognitive development. In D. Osherson (Ed.), Thinking: An intro-

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