Psychology of Music

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Metacognitive judgments in music performance

Zehra F. Peynircioglu, Brian J. Brandler, Timothy J. Hohman and Niels Knutson
Psychology of Music 2014 42: 748 originally published online 15 August 2013
DOI: 10.1177/0305735613491999
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491999
2013

POM42510.1177/0305735613491999Psychology of Music

Article

Metacognitive judgments in
music performance

Psychology of Music
2014, Vol. 42(5) 748762
The Author(s) 2013
Reprints and permissions:
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0305735613491999
pom.sagepub.com

Zehra F. Peynircioglu, Brian J. Brandler,

Timothy J. Hohman and Niels Knutson

Abstract
We examined two metacognitive judgments, ease of learning (EOL) and judgments of learning
(JOL), in music performance. Specifically, we tested whether the extrinsic cue of modality
(auditory versus visual presentation), as well as the intrinsic cue of syntax (providing more or less
cohesion), would influence such judgments. The participants were piano players in Experiment
1 and other instrumentalists in Experiments 2 and 3. Results showed that modality of the to-belearned pieces did indeed influence both EOL (all experiments) and JOL (Experiments 2 and 3)
ratings. Both ratings were also influenced by syntax (Experiment 3). Thus, successful EOL and
JOL were extended to music performance itself. Moreover, unlike in the verbal domain where
individuals can often use intrinsic cues but ignore extrinsic cues, both types of cues were used
effectively. The findings are interpreted within the framework of cue-utilization theory and
salience of cues.

Keywords
metacognition, ease of learning, judgment of learning, music performance, music

Musicians use a variety of strategies in learning and performing music, including metacognitive strategies. Hallam (2001), for instance, has observed that music students learn to learn
through such metacognitive strategies, and, more recently, Bathgate, Sims-Knight, and Schunn
(2012) have shown a direct correlation between explicit use of metacognitive strategies and
higher musical achievement. Ease of learning (EOL) judgments and judgments of learning
(JOL) are among the most relevant metacognitive strategies in music performance because they
American University, USA
Corresponding author:
Zehra Peynircioglu, Department of Psychology, American University, Washington, DC, 20016, USA.
Email: peynir@american.edu

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influence allocation of practice time and decisions on when learning is deemed complete (cf.
McPherson & McCormick, 2006). Ease of learning (EOL) judgments are made in advance of
acquisition and are estimations of the expected difficulty of learning any particular information, and judgments of learning (JOL) are made during or following acquisition and are judgments of how well the information has been acquired (e.g. Nelson & Narens, 1990). To date,
such metacognitive judgments have been explored largely for verbal materials and within the
mental realm of learning and memory. In this paper we extend this exploration to musical
materials and to judgments pertaining to actual performance rather than those pertaining to
mental faculties such as perception or memory.
Within the memory literature, although EOLs and JOLs have been found to be relatively
independent of each other, both judgments have been shown to be predictive of learning (e.g.
Leonesio & Nelson, 1990). Thus, successful music performance should also be correlated with
the accuracy of such judgments (cf. Thiede, 1999). Contemporary theories of the mechanism
of both EOL and JOL ratings focus mainly on making use of the cues present in the studied
material (e.g. Jnsson & Lindstrm, 2010; Koriat, 1997, 1998). With musical materials, then,
attentiveness to cues such as key signature or length of the piece should play a role in metacognitive judgments and their accuracy, which in turn should affect eventual mastery
(McPherson, 1994).
Cue utilization involves making use of both intrinsic and extrinsic cues (e.g. Koriat, 1997).
Intrinsic cues are features inherent in the studied items, such as the usage frequency of a
word, and extrinsic cues are factors external to the items, such as the number of repetitions in
a list presentation. Interestingly, although both extrinsic and intrinsic cues affect the actual
recall of learned material, participants have been shown to use intrinsic cues much more
effectively than extrinsic cues in making metacognitive judgments (e.g. Koriat, 1997; Zaromb
et al., 2010). In this vein, Carroll and Korukina (1999) have explored the effects of intrinsic
and extrinsic cues on EOL and JOL decisions in narrative learning. Participants studied paragraphs either by reading them in print (visually) or listening to them on tape (auditorily).
Some target sentences were either in proper coherent order or re-arranged so that the paragraph was incoherent. Thus, the extrinsic cue was modality of presentation and the intrinsic
cue was difficulty via coherence. Consistent with previous findings, the intrinsic cue influenced both metacognitive judgments in that coherent texts received higher EOL and JOL ratings. Further, the extrinsic cue was not utilized in making EOL judgments in that visually and
auditorily presented paragraphs were judged to be equally easy to learn. Inconsistent with
previous findings, however, JOL ratings were influenced also by the extrinsic cue in that auditorily presented items were rated as having been learned better than visually presented items.
Thus, in this case, extrinsic cues appeared to be ignored before acquisition but not after acquisition. One possible reason for this discrepancy was offered by Castel (2008), who suggested
that extrinsic cues can be used in all metacognitive judgments, but only if they are made
salient to the participant.
Music, too, can be learned either auditorily or visually. The layperson relies on the auditory
modality. For the performing musician, however, the convention is to learn through reading
sheet music, although some methods encourage learning primarily by ear first and then learning to read sheet music after auditory mastery (e.g. Suzuki, 1973). Despite much research on
which modality is more effective for learning, there is little consensus, and, in general, the tendency is to agree that learning through both modalities is the best practice (e.g. Johansen,
2005; Mishra, 2007).

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This debate notwithstanding, the modality in which music is presented can thus be considered a relevant extrinsic cue to see whether musicians can make use of it in their EOL and JOL
ratings (cf. Carroll & Korukina, 1999). Indeed, because music is inherently auditory, in that
unlike language, most people cannot experience or understand it from its visual presentation,
this extrinsic cue should be much more salient in music learning and be utilized more effectively in making both EOL and JOL decisions.
Carroll and Korukina (1999) used text cohesion as the intrinsic cue manipulation.
Re-arranging the order of sentences made the narrative less coherent, influencing both EOL
and JOL ratings. Given that musical pieces also possess syntax (e.g. Lerdahl & Jackendoff, 1983;
Patel, 2003), analogous imposition of structural violations can be considered to be an inherent
feature of the to-be-learned pieces. Indeed, tonally coherent melodies have been shown to be
remembered better than incoherent melodies (Schmuckler, 1997). The present question is
whether such an intrinsic cue would be utilized in making metacognitive judgments regarding
music performance, as well. Because there is more ambiguity in musical syntax and more
acceptance for listening to or playing nontraditional and thus not necessarily conventionally
rule-based music compared to linguistic materials, this intrinsic cue may not be as salient in the
music domain and not be utilized in a similar way as in language in making EOL and JOL
decisions.
One factor in music performance which may affect the efficacy of cue utilization is expertise.
In verbal memory studies, this factor is often inconsequential because the typical college-level
participants are all more or less equally proficient in dealing with the typical experimental
materials of words or paragraphs. Expertise, often defined by years of formal training, can
influence strategies in music cognition, however. For instance, Wolpert (1990) has shown that
in recognition tests musicians mainly relied on identifying melody and harmony lines, whereas
non-musicians relied on identifying instrumentation. Similarly, within metacognition, at least
with respect to larger scope learning or specific skills, expert learners have been shown to be
better in using different strategies to monitor the extent of learning and seek a better strategy
for success (e.g. de Bruin, Rikers, & Schmidt, 2007; Ertmer, 1996). On the other hand, previous
studies on mental learning of musical materials have shown that in making feeling-of-knowing
(FOK) judgments, another type of metacognitive judgment, expertise did not appear to play a
role (e.g. Korenman & Peynircioglu, 2004; Peynircioglu, Tekcan, Wagner, Baxter, & Shaffer,
1998), neither when defined as years of formal training nor as amount of exposure (Bigand &
Poulin-Charronnat, 2006). Thus, whether expertise would affect cue utilization in EOL and JOL
decisions was another target question in the present study, especially in a performance rather
than a mental-learning scenario where the decisions would need to apply also to the kinesthetic
component of music (cf. Persellin, 1992).
In summary, we tested the cue-utilization theory (Koriat, 1997) within the domain of
musical performance. We manipulated modality of presentation as an extrinsic cue in EOL
decisions in all experiments and in JOL decisions in Experiments 2 and 3 (cf. Carroll &
Korukina, 1999), making it an explicit/salient feature in all cases (cf. Castel, 2008). We also
manipulated coherence as an intrinsic cue in both EOL and JOL decisions (cf. Carroll &
Korukina) in Experiment 3. Of interest was whether these cues, especially the extrinsic cue of
modality because of the long-standing debate and interest on auditory versus visual learning
in music, would be utilized effectively in metacognitive judgments pertaining to future performance. Also of interest was whether such cue utilization would be modulated by ones expertise in performance.

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Experiment 1
In the first experiment, we focused on EOL judgments in response to the extrinsic cue of presentation modality in learning to play a piano piece. Some pieces were presented and learned auditorily, some visually, and some both auditorily and visually simultaneously to test for possible
additive effects. We also noted each participants preferred learning style. In the mental realm,
musicians have more success in learning and memorizing music in their preferred learning
style (Korenman & Peynircioglu, 2007). Because we did not expect any special influences of
learning style in extrinsic cue utilization as such learning style preferences are just as applicable to verbal materials, we collected the data only as a precaution in case preference differences
proved to matter in a performance scenario.

Method
Participants. A total of 18 American University students participated in the study. Those in psychology or music classes were given extra credit when applicable, and the others participated
on an unpaid voluntary basis. All participants knew how to read music and had played the
piano for a mean of 7.8 years (a few months17 years). Six participants reporting a few months
to 3 years of formal training (mean of 1.83 years) were classified as non-experts and the remaining 12 reporting 717 years of formal training (mean of 10.84 years) were classified as experts.
The preferred learning style of participants was assessed at the beginning of the experiment,
using the 1996 revision of the Barsch Learning Style Inventory (BLSI) (Barsch, 1996). Only
one participant had an auditory score greater than the visual score and one participant had
equal scores.
Materials. Twelve short original pieces for piano (Nevue, 2012, obtained from the website www.
davidnevue.com/sheetmusic.htm) were selected. Because only the first four or five measures
would be presented from each piece due to time constraints, and we wanted to also avoid ceiling
effects with expert pianists and floor effects with relatively novice pianists, the pieces were modified slightly so that these measures made sense by themselves and varied in terms of difficulty,
based on the judgments of the experimenters who were all musicians with various levels of
training.
For visual presentations, MuseScore, a computer software program designed for music notation, was used to uniformly notate and print the music on 8 1/2 x 11 paper. For auditory
presentations, the pieces were presented as MIDI audio files using Windows Media Player on the
on-board speakers of a Hewlett-Packard PC. Visual presentation time for each piece was determined based on playback time for the corresponding auditory sample. Thus, a piece that took
10 s to listen to was presented for 10 s visually.
Learning and performance of these pieces by the participants was on a Kawai FS630 keyboard using the Soft Piano 1 sound output and with the sustain feature disengaged.
Recordings of both learning trials and the final performance were captured as WAV audio files
with an Olympus VN-240PC digital voice recorder. EOL judgments were written on answer
sheets labeled for each mode, and both verbal and written instructions for making EOL judgments were given to participants with the answer sheets.
Design and procedure. Each participant was presented with all 12 pieces. One-third of the pieces
were presented visually, one-third auditorily, and one-third both visually and auditorily, in a

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blocked fashion. The order of the four pieces within each block was randomized for each participant, and the modality condition of each block was varied systematically so that across participants each piece was presented in each modality condition equally often.
Participants were tested individually. They were seated at a table opposite the experimenter
with the keyboard in front of them, and the computer facing the experimenter. After a brief
explanation of the procedure and the BLSI, participants were given instructions for making
EOL judgments, during which they were told to rate how difficult or easy each respective piece
would be to learn on a 6-point Likert scale, with 1 indicating very easy to learn, 34 as neutral, and 6 indicating very difficult to learn. They were also told to consider comparative
differences between the pieces, modes of presentation, and difficulty of selections based on
their perceived level of learning ability when making their judgments. Participants were then
given a practice piece, not used in the main experiment, corresponding to each mode of presentation to familiarize them with the procedure.
There were three phases for each block: Rating, Learning, and Performance. In the rating
phase, participants were first presented with all of the pieces in that block, and asked to simply
view, listen, or both view and listen to them, depending on the modality of the block, thinking
about the relative difficulty across the set. Then, the pieces were played/shown a second time,
and participants were instructed to make an EOL judgment after each piece.
In the learning phase participants were to learn and memorize each piece using only the
mode of presentation provided in the corresponding EOL judgment task. For each piece, the
experimenter set a timer for five minutes and left the room. During this period, in the auditory
condition, participants used the experimenters computer mouse to manipulate auditory playback of the samples in the Media Player application, while practicing and learning the piece on
the keyboard. In the visual condition, they practiced using the sheet music, and in the both
auditory and visual condition, they used both the auditory playback and the sheet music. After
the participant decided learning was complete for a given piece, or after a maximum of five
minutes, the experimenter re-entered the room. Learning was thus performed separately for
each of the four pieces in the block.
In the performance phase, participants played each of the pieces they had learned to the best
of their ability, once through, without correcting any mistakes. The experimenter recorded this
performance for scoring purposes. The participants then went through the same three phases
for the remaining two blocks. The order of the performance blocks was also counterbalanced
across participants. Finally, at the end of the experiment, they filled out the expertise survey
asking about years of formal training and different musical activities they participated in.

Results
The results are shown in Table 1. A 3 (Auditory, Visual, or Both) x 2 (Expert or Non-Expert)
ANOVA, with modality as a within-subject variable and expertise as a between-subject
variable was conducted. There was a main effect of modality on the magnitude of participants
EOL ratings, F(2, 22) = 20.65, MSE = 0.26, p < 0.01, no main effect of expertise, F(1,11) =
1.66, MSE = 0.72, p > 0.10, and an interaction between modality and expertise, F(2, 22) =
3.59, MSE = 0.26, p < 0.05.
Post-hoc pairwise comparisons with Tukeys HSD showed that participants rated visually
presented pieces as easier to learn than auditorily presented pieces, t(17) = 10.32, p < 0.01.
Similarly, both visually and auditorily presented pieces were rated as easier to learn than auditorily presented pieces, t(17) = 9.59, p < 01. However, there were no differences with respect to

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Table 1. Mean EOL ratings (16), performance scores (05), time spent to learn (in seconds), and EOL
accuracy (as Gamma correlations) as a function of presentation modality and expertise in Experiment 1.
Modality
Auditory

Visual

Both

Exp.

Non-

Overall

Exp.

Non-

Overall

Exp.

Non-

Overall

EOL
Perf. Score
Time Spent
Accuracy

4.19
2.59
264.33
0.89

5.19
2.08
300.00
0.25

1.50
2.43
275.31
0.69

3.53
3.21
241.89
0.35

3.38
3.23
274.06
1.00

3.48
3.22
251.79
0.55

3.39
3.26
242.94
0.59

3.69
2.99
275.12
0.50

3.48
3.17
252.85
0.56

EOL ratings between the visually and the both visually and auditorily presented pieces, t(17) =
0.72, p > 0.10. Perhaps either because almost all participants had a visual learning preference,
or because of the simultaneous sounds inherent in piano music, the added auditory presentation was not considered as an advantage, and ratings in the both condition seemed to be
driven by only the visual presentation.
Expertise did not influence the overall use of the modality cue in making EOL judgments and
thus had no effect on the question at hand. We should note, however, that post-hoc pairwise
comparisons with Tukeys HSD showed that non-experts gave lower ratings (indicating easier
to learn) than experts when pieces were presented auditorily, t(17) = 7.63, p < 0.01, but not
when pieces were presented visually or both visually and auditorily, ts(17) = 1.27, and 2.48,
respectively, both ps > 0.10. Not surprisingly, then, non-experts appeared to feel a need for more
environmental support of the type they were used to and were thus less confident in their ability to learn pieces without the sheet music in front of them.
Recorded performances were scored by two independent raters on three levels (agreement
was over 90% for all levels), with each level on a scale of 05 where 5 was perfect performance.
The three levels were as follows: 1) an overall performance rating according to a rubric that
took into consideration such factors as rhythmic accuracy, tempo, pauses and indications of
uncertainty, and so on, 2) a note-by-note accuracy score, measured as the ratio between notes
played at the correct pitch and total notes in the sample and transposed to a 05 scale, and 3) a
half-measure accuracy, measured as the ratio between half-measures played correctly and total
half-measures in the sample and transposed to a 05 scale. The mean of these three scores
comprised each participants final performance score and was used to gauge the accuracy of
the EOL ratings.
Goodman-Kruskal gamma correlations between the EOL ratings and performance scores
showed that participants were well above chance level (an overall gamma of 0.65) in their predictions, t(17) = 8.55, p < 0.01. More interestingly, there were no main effects of modality of
presentation, F(2,22) = 0.10, MSE = 0.56, expertise, F(1,11) = 1.66, MSE = 0.72, or an interaction, F(2,22) = 2.07, MSE = 0.56, all ps > 0.10.
Perhaps a more direct measure of EOL accuracy was the time it took the participants to learn
each sample. There was a main effect of modality, F(2,22) = 3.48, MSE = 595.31, p < 0.05, but
no main effect of expertise, F(1,11) = 2.24, MSE = 4114.80, p > 0.10, or an interaction
between modality and expertise, F(2,22) = 0.02, MSE = 595.31, p > 0.10 . Post-hoc comparisons with Tukeys HSD showed that, as they predicted, participants took less time to learn samples presented visually as well as both visually and auditorily compared to just auditorily, ts(17)
= 4.21 and 4.02, respectively, ps < 0.05. As with the magnitudes of the EOL ratings, there were

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no differences between visually presented and both visually and auditorily presented samples,
t(17) = 0.18, p > 0.10. We should also note that experts performance ratings were higher than
those of non-experts, and they took less time than non-experts to learn the samples, although
neither difference reached significance, most likely because of lack of power. Thus, there was
some empirical validation of the self-reported expertise even though this factor did not play a
role in the main question of interest.
In sum, all participants, irrespective of their expertise status, relied on the extrinsic cue of
presentation modality in making their EOL judgments. Visually presented samples were judged
to be easier to learn than auditorily presented samples. Further, these predictions were quite
accurate, as gauged by both time to learn and, more indirectly, by the actual performance,
although this accuracy was not influenced by presentation modality.

Experiment 2
Unlike in previous studies, we found that all our participants were able to make use of the
extrinsic cue of modality of presentation in their EOL judgments. In the following experiment,
we added a JOL decision (cf. Carroll & Korukina, 1999), as well, to see if the expected cue utilization would also extend to JOLs. We also changed our materials to samples with a single line of
music because perhaps the two simultaneous lines of piano music had made the auditory
learning scenario too daunting for the participants in Experiment 1 and caused lower EOL ratings based simply on this anticipation. Thus, in this experiment, we tested participants who
played a variety of instruments.

Method
Participants. A total of 22 adults participated in the experiment. None had participated in the
previous experiment. American University students enrolled in eligible psychology or music
classes were offered extra credit for participation and the others participated as unpaid volunteers. All participants knew how to read music and participated in this experiment by either
singing or playing one of the following instruments: clarinet, flute, guitar, oboe, piano (right
hand), saxophone, trumpet, or viola. The mean formal training on the instrument they participated with was 5.7 years (a few months to 13 years). However, because eventual performance
scores did not differentiate between more and less years of training, and because Experiment 1
had shown no influence of expertise in cue utilization, we did not include an expertise variable
in this experiment. Their BLSI scores indicated that 12 participants were visual learners, eight
were auditory learners, and two did not have a preference. Although, again, we were not
explicitly interested in learning style differences, it might be of some interest to note that it was
perhaps the inclusion of vocalists and other instrumentalists besides pianists which increased
the proportion of auditory learners.
Materials, design and procedure. Nine musical samples of eight measures each were selected from
old sight-reading exercise books, Solfge des Solfges. They varied in difficulty as defined by the
level of the books in order to provide a basis for relative ratings and to prevent ceiling or floor
effects. They were also transposed into different keys according to instrument type.
As before, a third of the samples were presented visually, a third auditorily, and a third both
visually and auditorily. This time, however, instead of being blocked, the samples were presented in a random fashion with respect to modality of presentation. Across three groups of

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participants, each sample was presented in each modality condition equally often. The primary
reason for this change in design was because we wanted all of the EOL ratings to be completed
before the learning phase, and all of the learning completed before the JOL ratings, and, for
both tasks, the participants to take into consideration the comparisons across all three modalities at the same time. The performance phase to gauge the accuracy of JOL ratings was last. The
order of samples was the same for all participants but different for EOL, JOL, and performance
presentations, although the modality in which a sample was presented remained constant
across any given participant.
As in Experiment 1, the participants were first presented with all nine samples in their appropriate modalities to become familiar with the overall range of difficulty. Then, the samples were
presented a second time, and participants wrote down their EOL ratings on the given form after
each one, following the same procedure as in Experiment 1. The learning phase followed immediately after, and participants were given three minutes to practice/learn each sample. Unlike in
Experiment 1, the experimenter remained in the room and presented the next sample when
time elapsed. Following the learning phase, participants filled out the demographic information
on music training which also served to create a delay before proceeding to JOL judgments (cf.
Dunlosky & Nelson, 1992). For the ensuing JOL ratings, participants were asked to base their
ratings on how well they believed they had learned each piece, using a 6-point Likert scale as
with the EOL ratings. To prompt them about each piece, participants were presented with the
first two measures of each sample, in the modality that it had initially been presented as well as
learned. During the performance phase, all participants were given the sheet music for each
sample to indicate which piece they were to perform. They were not allowed to study or look
over the samples but played each one once through without correcting any mistakes. Each
performance was recorded for later scoring. Although the auditory samples might have suffered some disadvantage from the presence of the sheet music during performance due to the
lack of a match between study and performance (Tulving, 1972), this was necessary in order
to remove the more troublesome extra memory load that would have been encountered in the
auditory condition. Further, because we were not interested in the levels of performance in the
different modality conditions per se but in performance only as a relative indicator of EOL and
JOL predictions, this was not seen as a relevant confound.

Results
The results are shown in Table 2. A one-way repeated measures ANOVA showed a main effect
of modality on the magnitude of participants EOL ratings, F(2, 42) = 7.20, MSE=1.18, p <
0.01. Post-hoc pairwise comparisons with Tukeys HSD showed that participants rated both
visually and auditorily presented pieces as being easier to learn compared to auditorily presented pieces, t(21) = 5.37, p < 0.01, although they were not rated differently from visually
presented pieces, t(21) = 2.69, p > 0.10. Unlike in Experiment 1, however, the difference
between visually presented and auditorily presented pieces did not reach significance, t(21) =
2.68, p > 0.10, perhaps because of the single-line melody. We should note that adding in learning style as a covariate did not alter any of the main findings.
There was also a main effect of modality on the magnitude of participants JOL ratings, F(2,
42) = 11.11, MSE = 1.60, p < 0.01. Post-hoc pairwise comparisons with Tukeys HSD showed
that participants believed to have learned both visually and auditorily presented pieces better
compared to auditorily presented pieces, t(21) = 6.63, p < 0.01, but not compared to visually

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Table 2. Mean EOL ratings (16), JOL ratings (16), performance scores (05), EOL and JOL accuracies
(3 to 3) as a function of presentation modality in Experiment 2.
Modality

Auditory

Visual

Both

EOL
JOL
Perf. Score
EOL Accuracy
JOL Accuracy

3.97
3.72
3.49
1.79
-0.23

3.45
2.83
3.61
1.14
2.07

2.69
1.95
3.61
1.39
1.39

presented pieces, t(21) = 2.75, p > 0.10. They also believed to have learned visually presented
pieces better than auditorily presented pieces, t(21) = 3.88, p < 0.05.
The most direct predictors of EOL accuracy were the corresponding JOL ratings. Because
there was a truncated range for JOL ratings, gamma correlations could not be used, and an
alternative measure of accuracy was utilized (e.g. Hosey, Peynircioglu, & Rabinovitz, 2009;
Rabinovitz & Peynircioglu, 2011). We defined ratings between 13 for EOL to indicate easy to
learn and those between 46 to indicate difficult to learn; similarly with JOL ratings to indicate well learned and not well learned. The total number of pieces with well learned JOL
decisions which had received difficult to learn EOL decisions was subtracted from the total
number of pieces with well learned JOL decisions which had received easy to learn EOL
decisions. More well learned decisions coupled with easy to learn decisions would indicate
accuracy and result in a positive number. Then the total number of pieces with not well
learned JOL decisions which had received easy to learn EOL decisions was subtracted from
the total number of pieces with not well learned JOL decisions which had received difficult
to learn EOL decisions. Again, more not well learned decisions coupled with difficult to
learn decisions would indicate accuracy and result in a positive number. These two numbers
were then added together to generate an accuracy score that took into account both well
learned and not well learned responses on the criterion JOL test. The higher the number, the
more accurate a participant was with respect to the EOL predictions. The overall accuracy score
of 3.18 was found to be significantly above chance, t(21) = 5.60, p < 0.01. There was, however,
no effect of modality, F(2,42) = 1.39, MSE = 2.92, p > 0.1. Participants were equally accurate
in all three presentation modality conditions.
JOL accuracy was measured using the performance scores as the criterion test. Performance
scores were obtained just as in Experiment 1. Because of truncated range problems, gamma
correlations could not be used to gauge JOL accuracy either, and thus performance scores of 3,
4, or 5 were classified as correct and those of 0, 1, or 2 were classified as incorrect. The JOL
accuracy scores were calculated as described in the alternative EOL accuracy measure, using
the combined differences between well learned and not well learned ratings for correct and
incorrect performances. The overall accuracy score of 1.73 was found to be significantly above
chance, t(21) = 3.91, p < 0.01. Unlike with EOL accuracy, however, there was a main effect of
modality F(2,42) = 10.24, MSE = 3.41, p < 0.01. Post-hoc pairwise comparisons with Tukeys
HSD showed that participants were more accurate when pieces were presented visually as well
as both visually and auditorily compared to when they were presented only auditorily, t(21) =
6.24, p < 0.01 and t(21) = 4.39, p < 0.05; the visual and the both visual and auditory presentation conditions did not differ from each other, t(17) = 1.84, p > 0.10.

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We would like to note that, to address any concerns that these measures were not normally
distributed, we also analyzed the results using a Generalized Estimations Equation model that
removes this assumption. All of our reported findings were entirely mirrored with these analyses. Finally, we would also like to note that this was the case for the next experiment, as well.
We replicated the findings of Experiment 1, showing that participants used the extrinsic cue
of presentation modality when making EOL ratings. As predicted by previous research, JOL ratings were also affected by presentation modality. Further, whereas the accuracy of the EOL
ratings was again unaffected by presentation modality, participants were more accurate about
their JOL ratings when these ratings were given to pieces presented in the modality they felt
more comfortable with.

Experiment 3
Experiments 1 and 2 showed that the extrinsic cue of presentation modality was utilized in
making EOL and JOL decisions regarding future performance. In Experiment 3, we examined
whether an intrinsic cue would also influence individuals metacognitive judgments regarding
future performance. To this end, paralleling the Carroll and Korukina (1999) study, we manipulated syntax as the intrinsic cue. Thus, participants made both EOL and JOL decisions on
pieces that were presented either visually or auditorily, and, within each modality, had either
coherent or re-arranged musical syntax. To simplify matters, we no longer had the combined
condition (both visual and auditory).

Method
Participants. A total of 20 adults participated in the experiment. None had participated in the
previous experiments. American University students enrolled in eligible psychology or music
classes were offered extra credit for participation and the others participated as unpaid volunteers. As before, all participants knew how to read music and comprised vocalists as well as
clarinet, flute, piano and trumpet players. The mean years of formal instruction was 10.9 years
(424 years), and BLSI scores showed that there were 16 visual, 3 auditory, and 1 equally
visual and auditory learners, although, again, neither expertise nor learning style was a variable of interest.
Materials, design and procedure. We selected eight pieces from Experiment 2, and also created a
syntactically distorted version of each by scrambling the order or measures. In a pilot experiment, 10 highly trained musicians were instructed to reorder the scrambled measures in each
piece to reflect the most syntactically correct version. In no case was a distorted version deemed
the correct version. However, because there emerged several possible correct versions of each
piece, we further flipped each half measure as well to make sure that syntax was clearly
violated.
Each participant received four ordered and four disordered pieces, two of each in the auditory and visual conditions. Across participants, each piece was presented in the syntax (ordered
vs disordered) and presentation modality (visual vs auditory) condition equally often. The
remaining method was identical to that of Experiment 2, except that performances were
recorded using a Shure SM 56 microphone into a computer equipped with Audacity software
for subsequent automatic scoring of accuracy.

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Table 3. Mean EOL ratings (16), JOL ratings (16), performance scores (05), EOL and JOL accuracy
(3 to 3) as a function of presentation modality and syntax in Experiment 3.
Modality

Auditory

Syntax

Ord

Dis

Overall

Ord

Dis

Overall

EOL
JOL
Perf. Score
EOL Accuracy
JOL Accuracy

3.71
3.83
3.19
0.58
-0.17

4.42
4.58
2.99
1.70
0.00

1.93
1.79
3.09
0.88
-0.08

2.92
3.27
3.10
1.17
1.33

3.52
3.25
2.93
1.25
1.25

2.78
2.74
3.01
1.21
1.29

Visual

Results
The results are shown in Table 3. A repeated measures ANOVA showed a main effect of modality, F(1, 23) = 5.22, MSE=3.28, p < 0.05, as well as a main effect of syntax F(1,23) = 17.48,
MSE = 0.60, p < 0.01 on the magnitude of EOL ratings. Visual presentations led to higher EOL
ratings, and so did ordered syntax. There was no interaction between modality and syntax,
F(1,23) = 0.18, MSE=0.36, p > 0.10.
There was also a main effect of modality, F(1, 23) = 5.69, MSE=3.79, p < 0.05, as well as a
main effect of syntax F(1,23) = 10.68, MSE = 0.30, p < 0.01 on the magnitude of JOL ratings.
Visual presentations led to higher JOL ratings, and so did ordered syntax. However, this time,
there was also a significant interaction between modality and syntax, F(1,23) = 7.29, MSE =
0.50, p < 0.05. Post-hoc analyses showed that whereas syntax made a difference in the auditory modality, t(23) = 5.25, p < 0.01, this distinction did not appear in the visual modality,
t(23) = 0.14, p > 0.10. That is, participants did not seem to think disordered syntax hurt their
learning when learning took place with the sheet music in front of them.
The accuracy of both EOL and JOL ratings was determined as in Experiment 2. The mean
EOL accuracy (4.17) as well as the mean JOL accuracy (2.42) were significantly above chance,
t(23) = 7.23 and t(23) = 3.60, both ps < 0.01. Replicating the results of Experiment 2, there
was no main effect of modality in EOL ratings, F(1,23) = 0.91, MSE = 2.93, p > 0.10, but there
was a main effect of modality on JOL ratings, F(1,23) = 8.44, MSE = 5.38, p < 0.01. Participants
were equally accurate in their EOL predictions for auditorily or visually presented pieces, but
they were more accurate in their JOL predictions for visually presented pieces. Syntax did not
have an effect on either the EOL ratings, F(1,23) = 1.74, MSE =1.54, p > 0.10, or the JOL ratings, F(1,23) = 0.05, MSE = 0.91, p > 0.10, and in neither case was there an interaction
between modality and syntax, Fs(1,23) = 1.21, and 0.42, MSEs = 1.24 and 0.90, both ps >
0.10. Participants were equally accurate in their predictions of both how easy or difficult a
piece would be to learn and how well any piece was learned for future performance, regardless
of whether these predictions were made for syntactically ordered or disordered pieces.
The findings of this experiment thus replicated the results of the previous experiments and
showed that the extrinsic cue of modality was effectively utilized in both EOL and JOL decisions
about future performance. One might point out that participants were not really sensitive to the
role this extrinsic cue would play in influencing memory but were simply reporting what they
thought should influence memory and how based on their a priori beliefs. But, not only do we
not have the data to address such an explanation, there is also no reason why participants
should not use the same beliefs with verbal materials. Further, the findings showed

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that participants also made accurate use of the intrinsic cue of syntax in these metacognitive
judgments. Indeed, not only were the participants accurate in the case of EOLs when they predicted that disordered syntax would influence the learning phase regardless of the presentation
modality, they were also accurate in the case of JOLs when they distinguished between the differential effects of disordered syntax in the auditory and visual presentation conditions.

Conclusions
We have explored whether musicians can effectively utilize both extrinsic and intrinsic cues
while making metacognitive judgments about learning to perform a piece. In the mental learning realm, previous research has shown that even though differences embodied in both types of
cues do indeed affect recall, individuals attend to and make use of intrinsic cues more effectively
than extrinsic cues in predicting recall (e.g. Koriat, 1997). That is, even though differences in
aspects extrinsic to the to-be-learned materials such as presentation modality or number of
repetitions affect recall just as differences in aspects intrinsic to the to-be-learned material
such as word length or concreteness do, individuals tend to discount the former types of differences as relevant cues. For instance, Carroll and Korukina (1999) found that whereas the
intrinsic cue of syntactic order influenced EOL ratings, the extrinsic cue of presentation modality did not. Unlike in most other research, however, they also showed that both of these intrinsic
and extrinsic cues were utilized in JOL judgments, and discussed the differences between the
two metacognitive judgments which might have triggered the effective use of the extrinsic cue
in one case and not in the other case.
In our study, learning was not a memory task but rather the improvement in the actual performance of a given musical piece. We used the same extrinsic and intrinsic cues as Carroll and
Korukina (1999), presentation modality and syntactic order, and, with respect to the intrinsic
cue, extended their findings along with those from other previous research to the performance
realm. We also replicated their finding of effective extrinsic cue utilization in JOL decisions.
Unlike both the Carroll and Korukina and other usual findings in the verbal domain, however,
we also showed effective use of the extrinsic cue in EOL decisions in all three experiments. This
suggests that the type of task might be as important as the type of judgment in determining the
appropriate cues to utilize.
With verbal materials, individuals are exposed to and are used to manipulating information
in both auditory and visual modalities, and thus presentation of materials in one or the other
modality is not a very salient aspect. Music is special, however, in that even though everyday
exposure to it is mostly auditory for the layperson, when learning to perform, especially if performance does not necessarily mandate memorization, musicians rely much more on the visual
than the auditory presentation modality. When a piece is presented auditorily for learning purposes instead of the familiar/traditional way, this unique attribute garners special attention
and the modality of presentation thus gains salience. Supporting Castels (2008) suggestion,
then, because the extrinsic cue of modality was salient to the participant due to its very nature
in music performance, it was used even in making EOL judgments. Further, in this performance
realm, participants were quite sensitive to both types of cues in that they even accurately distinguished between the differential roles syntactic order would play as a function of presentation
modality in the two different types of metacognitive judgments.
We should note that although learning style preferences were obtained, they did not change
the results when added as a covariate in Experiment 2, and a paucity of auditory learners in
Experiments 1 and 3 did not allow for similar analyses. In any case, lack of a learning-style

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effect was not surprising because such individual differences were just as applicable to the verbal domain with respect to cue utilization, and there was no compelling reason to expect them
to be differentially so in the music domain. Further, even though there is evidence that learning
styles can play a role in music learning (e.g. Korenman & Peynircioglu, 2007), their utility in
more general cognition has been disputed (Pashler, McDaniel, Roher, & Bjork, 2008). Finally,
expertise did not appear to make a difference in individuals ability or inclination to use these
cues successfully. Consistent with our findings in the mental realm using FOK judgments
(Korenman & Peynircioglu, 2004; Peynircioglu et al., 1998), the global EOL and JOL decisions
(as opposed to similar decisions on specific portions of the piece) were equally influenced by the
cues at hand and also equally accurate for both novice and expert players. The only statistical
differences that emerged between the two groups were relevant to the empirical differentiation
of experts and non-experts and not to the main question of cue utilization. Perhaps the gap
between our expert and non-expert groups was not sufficient enough for our measures to be
sensitive to detecting possible small differences. Nevertheless, at the very least, the present data
suggest that non-experts are also able to rely on presentation modality and notice and rely on
syntactic order in making metamemory judgments.
Acknowledgements
We thank William Brent for developing the patch for scoring performance. Timothy J. Hohman is now at
Vanderbilt University.

Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-forprofit sectors.

Note
1. Recordings made in Audacity were cleaned up and labeled and then note-by-note scores were obtained
using a software patch developed by Dr William Brent. A note was defined as correct if it was within
half a semitone from the expected note value.

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Author biographies
Zehra Peynircioglu is a professor at American University. She received her BA from Stanford University, her MA from Princeton University, and her PhD from Rice University, all in psychology.
She also has a BA in music from American University.
Brian Brandler is an MA student at American University in psychology. He received his BA from
Boston University in Biochemistry/Molecular Biology.
Niels Knutson received his MA in Psychology from American University and his BA in Music
from Saint Olaf College.
Timothy Hohman received his BA in Psychology from Gordon College, his MA in Psychology
from American University, and his PhD in Behavior, Cognition, and Neuroscience from American University. He completed a predoctoral fellowship at the National Institute on Aging in
the Laboratory of Behavioral Neuroscience and is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Vanderbilt
University in the Center for Human Genetics Research.

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