What Is a Matching Concept?

Matching concept The identification of animals with similar objects. Animals have the same and different concepts. Trained pigeons can tell whether a stimulus is the same as or different from the sample stimulus. In the experiment, a visual sample and two comparative stimuli are presented at the same time, one of which is the same as the sample (that is, matches) and the other is different from the sample. When the training matches the sample, the participant must choose the same stimulus as the sample; when the training is different from the sample, the participant must choose a different stimulus from the sample. Based on the homework results, the animal's knowledge of whether a stimulus matches the sample stimulus can be assessed. ^[1]