Motor effort biases perceptual decisions through later-stage evidence accumulation rather than early sensory-attentional processing

Motor effort has been shown to bias perceptual decisions toward less effortful choices, but it remains unknown whether this bias already takes effect during the early stages of decision formation through preparatory attentional allocation or sensory processing, or during later-stage evidence accumulation preceding response execution. This study investigated when motor effort becomes integrated into decision formation by focusing on the temporal evolution of neural processing during perceptual decision-making. While 64-channel EEG was recorded, twenty-four healthy adults performed an orientation discrimination task in which two Gabor patches appeared simultaneously in the left and right visual hemifield and decisions were reported using two pressure-sensitive response buttons requiring different levels of force. We found that motor effort modulated EEG activity at both the preparatory and later decision stages: pre-stimulus alpha power was reduced over the occipito-parietal cortex contralateral to the low-effort option, and mean centro-parietal positivity (CPP) amplitude preceding response execution was greater over centro-parietal cortex for low-effort choices, while leaving early sensory representations intact as indicated by no differences in P1 or N1 amplitude following stimulus onset. Trial-by-trial CPP amplitude preceding response execution increased with the likelihood of selecting the low-effort option, whereas the pre-stimulus alpha modulation was not associated with behavioral decision bias. These findings suggest that motor effort biases perceptual decisions primarily during later-stage evidence accumulation, thereby providing insight into the neural basis of embodied perceptual decision making.