This systematic review examined how two dimensions of early-life adversity (ELA) — threat and deprivation — relate to attention biases toward emotional stimuli in children and adolescents (ages 0–18), across nine different attention task types, drawing on 46 studies identified from six databases (search through June 17, 2025).
Evidence was heterogeneous across 46 included articles. Significant associations between ELA dimensions and attention biases were conditional on participant age, stimulus presentation time, and emotion type. Only partial support was found for the dimensional model (threat vs. deprivation predicting distinct attention bias patterns), with reliable patterns hampered by inconsistent study designs and sampling.
- High heterogeneity across studies in design and sampling limits firm conclusions. - Most included studies likely conflated threat and deprivation exposures rather than isolating them, making dimensional comparisons difficult. - The review is restricted to English-language, peer-reviewed publications, which may introduce publication and language bias.
Clinicians working with adversity-exposed youth should not assume a uniform attention bias profile — the type of adversity, child's age, and specific emotional stimuli all appear to shape attention responses. Standardized, developmentally sensitive assessment of attention biases may be needed before targeting them in intervention.
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