(ă-kŏm″ă-dā′shŭn)
[Pronunciation]
[L. accommodare, to suit]
Abbreviation: a; acc.

1. Adjustment or adaptation.
2. In ophthalmology, a phenomenon noted in receptors in which continued stimulation fails to elicit a sensation or response.
3. 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: ocular accommodation; ; visual accommodation




4. 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

Subentries:
absolute accommodation
amplitude of accommodation
binocular accommodation
excessive accommodation
ill-sustained accommodation
mechanism accommodation
negative accommodation
ocular accommodation
positive accommodation
range of accommodation
reasonable accommodation
relative accommodation
spasm of accommodation
subnormal accommodation
visual accommodation