cs.DLJun 20, 2026

Rebuttals Move Peer-Review Scores, but Initial-Review Structure Bounds the Movement

Authors: Mathieu LouisTibo VanlekeVincent GinisAndres Algaba

Organizations: Data Analytics Lab, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Pleinlaan 5, 1050 Brussel, Belgium · imec-SMIT, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Pleinlaan 9, 1050 Brussels, Belgium · School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA

Abstract

Author rebuttals are the main post-submission window in peer review, but their effect on reviewer scores remains hard to measure because score updates mix rebuttal content with initial score position, paper-level consensus, reviewer confidence, and discussion dynamics. We study ICLR 2024-2025 using 73,000 reviewer trajectories with externally archived pre- and post-rebuttal scores, and use LLMs only as measurement instruments. Gemini Flash 3.0 predicts implied pre-rebuttal scores from score-stripped review text. The resulting text-score offset predicts later movement, with score-increase rates rising from 8.3% when text reads below the assigned score to 31.9% when it reads above. Claude Opus 4.6 induces, and outcome-blinded Gemini Flash 3.0 validates, a 44-feature taxonomy of resolved reviewer-author exchanges, where 23 features replicate across model and held-out year under Bonferroni correction. In the rebuttal-engaged benchmark (n=6,705), initial-review structure already predicts much score movement (AUC=0.747, minimal AUC=0.696), while adding the resolved exchange raises AUC to 0.804. Rebuttals can move scores, but measurable movement is bounded by initial-review structure, and robust exchange signals are mostly rebuttal failure modes.

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