| Abstract: | Experiential structuralism is a new theory of cognitive organization and growth. It postulates that the cognitive system is organized into six autonomous capacity spheres: the quantitative-relational, the qualitative-analytic, the imaginal-spatial, the causal-experimental, the verbal-propositional, and the metacognitive-reflecting. These capacities were called experiential because they are experimentally documented, they reflect the organization of the persons' experience and the - subjective - experience the persons have about this organization. Thus it was proposed that a set of specific cognitive abilities may be integrated into a general capacity under the guidance of four principles. Namely, the principles of (1) domain specificity, (2) formal-procedural specificity, (3) symbolic bias, and (4) subjective distinctness of capacities. It was argued that this theory resolves some of the problems related to the competence-performance dispute better than the other neo-Piagetian theories. It seems to succeed in this regard because it postulates mechanisms directly linking performance variations with systematic variations in the organization of the cognitive system. However, the neo-Piagetian theories, though they did not define capacities, did propose notions able to causally explain the construction of autonomous capacities. These notions were integrated into a common model able to explain the generation of capacities. Overall, then, the present article attempts to integrate traditional differential and cognitive-developmental psychology into a common theory. |
