Ninety minutes into a meeting, one person who has said almost nothing asks a single question, and the room goes quiet in a different way.
What the research found
A 2011 study in the Academy of Management Journal, by Adam Grant, Francesca Gino and David Hofmann, followed 57 pizza delivery stores for seven weeks. Where employees were passive, more extraverted store leaders went with higher profits. Where employees were proactive — suggesting better ways to do the work — the same style went with lower profits. The authors' explanation is that a leader who fills the room leaves less space for other people's ideas to land.
The store data shows the pattern, not the reason. It is one chain in one industry, the leaders rated their own extraversion, and it is a correlation rather than an experiment. What it does show is that the most talkative person in charge is not automatically the one getting the best out of the room.
Why the late question tends to land hardest
A person who has spent an hour and a half tracking the discussion, rather than generating their own points inside it, has a different vantage point than anyone still forming a view in real time. Their question, when it finally comes, is usually aimed at the actual gap in the conversation, not at restating a position already on the table.
Where to start
Do not read a quiet stretch in a meeting as a lack of engagement, in yourself or in someone else. If you are the one who has stayed quiet, trust that the question forming is probably sharper for the wait, not weaker.
If someone else has been quiet, the deliberate move is to ask them directly before the meeting closes, rather than assuming their silence meant they had nothing to add.
Reading whether a specific quiet stretch is someone tracking carefully or someone actually checked out is a judgment you will make better with people you already know than any general rule can make for you. What this gives you is the reason to check before assuming it is the second one.
There is a specific way to invite a quiet person's input at the right moment without putting them on the spot in front of the room, and it is worth having ready before the meeting closes, not after.