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Blame through my eyes: How first-person perspective shapes social attention and attribution in harmful interactions – a comparative eye tracking study

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: BACKGROUND: Rigid attributional patterns are a key component of social cognitive deficits linked to aggression. Prior eye-tracking research using a third-person perspective revealed that, compared to community adults, incarcerated violent offenders oriented less to faces and showed a stronger correlation between perceived intentionality and assigned blame (Intentionality/Blame isomorphism), a metric of attributional inflexibility. The present study investigated how adopting an immersive first-person victim perspective affects both I/B isomorphism and facial attention. METHODS: A total of 184 adults participated in our study, including 119 community members (60 female, 59 male) and 65 incarcerated violent offenders (32 female, 33 male). During the eye-tracking task, participants viewed 27 static visual scenes depicting ambiguous interpersonal harm between two actors - a harm doer and a victim - and were instructed to imagine themselves as the victim in each scenario. The scenes included both hostile (e.g., a harmful act) and non-hostile (e.g., mitigating expressions or gestures) cues. Independent samples t-tests were used to compare group differences in I/B isomorphism and face dwell time, and Pearson's correlations were used to examine the relationships between variables. RESULTS: Consistent with our hypothesis and contrary to findings from third-person studies, incarcerated violent offenders exhibited significantly lower I/B isomorphism than community adults under a first-person perspective. Furthermore, no significant differences in face dwell time were observed between these two groups. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that, among incarcerated violent offenders, adopting a victim's perspective may disrupt rigid attributional patterns and normalize attention to social cues. These findings suggest that perspective-taking interventions could support improvements in empathy, cognitive flexibility, and overall interpersonal functioning.

Source: Borderline Personality Disorder and Emotion Dysregulation

DOI: 10.1186/s40479-026-00348-0

Authors: Adrianna Jakubowska, Raphaëlle Fortin, Makar Varenyk, Li Ting Lin, Anna Zajenkowska

Institutions: VIZJA University, Université de Montréal, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University

Language: English

Topic: Psychopathy, Forensic Psychiatry, Sexual Offending

Subfield: Clinical Psychology

Field: Psychology

Domain: Social Sciences

SDGs: Peace, justice, and strong institutions, Good health and well-being

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $2,790