Augmented reality (AR) systems require listeners to wear head-worn devices (HWDs) such as headphones and head-mounted displays (HMDs), which can alter spatial hearing by modifying the acoustic cues reaching the listeners’ ears. Although acoustical and perceptual effects have been reported for isolated HWDs, most studies rely on simplified paradigms such as static sound source localisation tasks, providing limited insight into spatial perception in more ecological settings. In everyday listening, spatial perception is an active multisensory process in which listeners coordinate head and eye movements to build a stable representation of the environment, which may be disrupted by altered auditory cues. In this work, the perceptual impact of wearing HWDs was investigated using an auditory-aided visual search task with continuous tracking of head and eye movements. Multiple HWD configurations were compared, including two pairs of headphones with and without an HMD, to assess how scattering introduced by these devices affects spatial hearing in ecologically relevant AR scenarios. Results showed small but statistically significant effects of HWDs on exploration behaviour, primarily reflected in increased eye-movement search time, while head movements were only marginally affected. Across conditions, eye movements preceded head movements, with subtle differences in movement onset timing but limited impact on overall search performance. Overall, the findings indicate that HWDs introduce measurable but moderate changes in eye–head coordination, while largely preserving spatial search performance in ecologically valid listening conditions.
