accommodation

(ă-kom″ă-dā′shŏn)

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[L. accommodare, to suit]
ABBR: a; acc
1. Adjustment or adaptation.
2. The adjustment of the eye for various distances whereby it is able to focus the image of an object on the retina by changing the curvature of the lens. In accommodation for near vision, the ciliary muscle contracts, causing increased rounding of the lens, the pupil contracts, and the optic axes converge. These three actions constitute the accommodation reflex. The ability of the eye to accommodate decreases with age.
SYN: SEE: ocular accommodation; SEE: visual accommodation
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VISUAL ACCOMMODATION
3. In the learning theory of Jean Piaget, the process through which a person's schema of understanding incorporates new experiences that do not fit existing ways of understanding the world.
SEE: adaptation

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