Behavior vs Appearance: What Type of Adaptations are More Socially Motivated?

For autonomous agents to successfully perform in open hybrid scenarios (with people and agents), they need to adapt to different social contexts. Simultaneously, the people involved must understand the observed changes in the agents, particularly to identify the social motivations for such behavior. In this paper, we report an experimental study conducted to assess if an agent's behavioral changes (gait), are perceived as more socially motivated than its appearance adaptations (color). Furthermore, we explore if other agents' presence and behavior affect the attribution of motivations. Our findings suggest that external observers identify agents' appearance adaptations as more socially and spatially motivated than behavioral changes. Furthermore, the agents' awareness is rated higher when the agents adjust their physical characteristics compared to behavioral adaptations.