Metacognition, the ability to monitor and control one’s cognitive processes, is widely regarded as beneficial in different educational settings, resulting in improved academic outcomes in knowledge-based tasks. However, the role of metacognition in procedural tasks is less clear. While many processes, such as motor adaptation — the online adjustment of a movement to reach an intended goal — occur automatically without the need for conscious monitoring, other research suggests that elite athletes have superior motor metacognitive skills; and that metacognition plays an important role in music education.

Using guitar playing as an ecologically valid task to study motor control, this study investigates the relationship between metacognitive and motor performance. Specifically, we address two gaps in the current literature: the assumed but untested link between metacognition and motor performance and the relationship between metacognition and the presumed unconscious nature of motor adaptation. We hypothesize that monitoring will be positively correlated with motor performance and inversely correlated with motor adaptation.

We tested these hypotheses using secondary data from 52 amateur guitarists who completed a novel paradigm in which they monitored their finger movements while playing single notes on a guitar neck. Sensor-based movement data allowed us to quantify motor performance; and participants’ identification of instances of altered feedback on their finger position, together with their confidence in their responses, allowed us to measure the precision of metacognitive judgments (m-ratio). Ultimately, this research seeks to advance our understanding of how metacognitive processes shape skilled motor performance in applied contexts such as guitar playing.