39Conclusion
We thus see a surprising level of similarity in infant memory representations for music and
for language. In both cases, infants readily represent the input at multiple levels of analysis,
from highly specific surface-level cues to the structural information that eventually conveys
meaning. Moreover, these processes of learning and memory proceed without instruction
or any reinforcement other than the pleasure of listening and the instinct to learn. These
findings lend further support to an emerging picture of infants as remarkably adept at
implicitly learning and remembering the structured information that characterizes the envir-
onment in which they develop. From the infant’s perspective, music and language may not
be nearly as different as they are for the adult listener, at least when considering what is
to be gleaned from a listening experience. Just how distinct these processes are remains to
be seen. Might the eventual differences in how the adult brain represents music and lan-
guage be due to predetermined differences in the brain, or to differences in the structure of
the input drawn from these two domains, or both? Regardless, it is evident that even the
youngest listeners are already accomplished musicians in their own right.
Acknowledgements
The preparation of this chapter was made possible by a grant from the International
Foundation for Music Research. Thanks to the many students and research assistants who
have collaborated on the conduct of this research, and to Erik Thiessen for helpful com-
ments on a previous draft.
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