Electrocortical and Psychophysiological Responses in Anticipation of Avoidable and Inevitable Threats. Attentive immobility is an adaptive defensive response to prepare for subsequent escape from threats. In humans, it has been associated with a multimodal pattern of elevated skin conductance, bradycardia, freezing of gaze, and reductions in visuocortical alpha power to enhance perceptional processing and action preparation. By combining avoidable and inevitable threats with different shock intensities, we aimed to disentangle the effects of threat intensity and motor response preparation on indices of defense behavior. Forty-eight participants observed naturalistic images while EEG and psychophysiology were recorded. Results showed that electrocortical and psychophysiological response patterns were mainly dominated by action readiness. The interplay between threat intensity and action preparation suggests an integrative framework where threat responses and motor preparation are driven by motivational relevance. These findings underscore the interconnected nature of fear and action preparation, offering new perspectives on human defensive behavior.