Exploring the synergistic effectiveness of music and mental imagery to improve motor skill performance in sports: a systematic review

Prior literature suggests that both music and imagery have beneficial effects on motor skill performance in sport settings. However, evidence for their combined use is still scarce. We conducted a preregistered (PROSPERO protocol number CRD42024538656) systematic review following the PRISMA guidelines where we synthesized and critically appraised studies that have evaluated the efficacy of interventions that combine mental imagery and music (henceforth: MIMUS) on the learning, retention, and improvement of motor skills of athletes and healthy individuals, and compared their impact to imagery only, music only, or other control and treatment conditions. Ten experiments comprising data of 302 participants met the inclusion criteria. Due to the high variability of study designs, no statistical meta-analysis was performed, however, we added and reported an ad hoc meta-analysis using Bayesian mixed effects models to quantify the overall evidence for the efficacy of MIMUS interventions, which revealed strong evidence that MIMUS influences post-tests motor skill performance but only weak evidence that MIMUS is overall more effective than imagery-only treatments. We discussed the findings and provided recommendations to optimize the effects of MIMUS in future interventions.