When conducting question and answer sessions for large audiences,
why do speakers often try to distribute their attention (pick
questioners) randomly? This may be an attempt to distribute their
attention evenly throughout the audience (in the limit these two
notions are probably the same). The popular idea seems to be that if
the speaker picks his questioners from a localized part of the
audience, he is being unfair. Is there a rational reason for the
random choosing?
Unless the audience is composed of a few large groups, with members
sitting near each other, it would seem perfectly fair to start at a
random point and proceed in a regular manner from there, such as
choosing the nearest questioner after that and so on.
John
