Can the individual winner HRTFs be determined in a shooting task during onboarding for an Audio Only VR?

This study is inspired by the ambition to determine the individually best HRTFs during an onboarding task for an audio-only VR experience using a shooting down sound source task. The study is motivated by the needs of blind and visually impaired users, who may rely more critically on correct rendering of auditory spatial cues. As a first step, we have implemented an experimental VR platform that renders sound source targets in a virtual environment and logs head and handheld controller positional data while participants localize and shoot the audible targets one by one. In a pilot study, six game-relevant stimuli were tested across visible familiarization targets followed by ten invisible targets per session. Data were collected from seven sighted participants, which demonstrate individual precision-time trade-offs, with emerging prototype search patterns (e.g., hemisphere swaps and cone-of-confusion iterations). The prototype patterns are likely quantifiable via angular error, response time, path length, and search speed. Notably, for shooting precision, head orientation slightly outperforms controller pointing for invisible targets.