In neo-Piagetian skill theory, all life processes that function below the level of psychological experience and action. In a hierarchical view of development, organism-environment systems function as multilevelled processes. Higher levels emerge from integrations of lower-level systems, but have properties that are absent from and not reducible to lower-level systems. As such, while psychological processes (e.g., meaning making, experience, mediated action) are biological processes that occur within a biogenetic medium, a distinction is made between lower-level biogenetic processes (gene action, cell metabolism, brain functioning) and higher-order individual-agentic and socio-cultural processes and systems.
See Agentic processes, Emergence, Hierarchy, Levels of analysis, Levels of organisation, Neo-Piagetian theories of cognitive development