In psychology, accommodation refers to an adaptation of cognitive structures.
Accommodation is a term that can be used in different ways. Its meaning refers to the process and result of accommodating : placing something in such a way that it can adapt or adjust to something else.
Arrangement can refer to the process of placing objects in a particular environment . For example: “Arranging the furniture took me all afternoon” or “We need to think about how we are going to arrange the new machines.”
Accommodation is also known as something that is carried out so that someone or something can adapt to the environment and establish itself, whether temporarily or permanently: “Please take care of the accommodation of the visitors” , “The State has the moral obligation to provide accommodation to immigrants who arrive persecuted from their countries” .
Accommodation according to psychology
In the field of psychology , accommodation is a mechanism that allows an individual to change his or her cognitive structures in order to incorporate new knowledge. This process, detailed by Jean Piaget , may involve either changing an existing scheme or developing a different scheme that allows the incorporation of the new stimulus.
Piaget was an acclaimed psychologist from Switzerland who achieved great relevance thanks to the studies he carried out on intelligence, cognitive development and childhood. His observations and conclusions are of great importance for the current training of future psychologists, and also for research. With regard to accommodation, which can also appear under the name of adjustment , it is one of the two fundamental processes of human learning, along with assimilation .
When a child is faced with a new stimulus, it is normal for him to try to add it to his own schemas. Of course, this is not possible in all cases, since sometimes he does not have an adequate schema for such integration. Through accommodation, the brain can create or modify one of the existing ones to complete the process successfully.
Either way, creation or modification, a change in cognitive structures occurs . It is then that the child can try to assimilate the stimulus again, now with more propitious schemes. This is, in simpler words, the path of experience that we all go through during our lives.
Accommodation is a process that allows the sense of sight to optimize focus.
The concept linked to sight
The idea of accommodation, on the other hand, appears in the field of the sense of sight . Accommodation is what the lens does when it increases its refractive power to focus on objects located at a short distance. The eye, when relaxed, is prepared to focus on things located at a long distance. Through accommodation, the lens adapts by increasing its refractive power.
In the case of vertebrate animals, the group that includes humans, this increase in power is achieved by two different means: in some cases the ciliary muscle (which is located inside the eye , attached to the lens , and has the appearance of a ring) contracts, thereby increasing the curvature and thickness; on the other hand, a movement of the lens can also occur (this is what happens in the eyes of fish).
It is worth mentioning that it is not always possible to achieve perfect image accommodation, as there are certain limits beyond which there is always a loss of sharpness (the image goes out of focus ), which is why objects are perceived as "blurred". The shortest distance at which an object can be seen with perfect accommodation, without distortions, is known as the near point .