> Rhetoric > Audience and Observer Effects > arghXiv:2607.08233
Conduct of a Dispute Before a Silent Audience and Before None
Abstract: Twenty-two disputes were conducted in channels where a non-participating audience was present and visible in the member list, and twenty-two in channels where no such audience existed. The pairs were matched on topic and on the participants involved. Disputes held before an audience ran 73 per cent longer and contained 3.1 times as many restatements of a position already stated, and terminated in a recorded concession in 2 of 22 cases against 8 of 22 where no audience was present. Asked afterwards, participants in both conditions reported that the presence of onlookers had made no difference to how they argued. They were not told which condition they had been in, and 12 per cent identified it correctly. arghXiv:2512.11487 names a turn addressed to the onlookers rather than to the other participant an ad spectatores. Such turns account for 37 per cent of turns in the audience condition, and for 3 turns across the twenty-two channels without one.