Miguel Abambres
email: abambres@netcabo.pt

Tiago Ribeiro

Ana Sousa

Eva Lantsoght
email: l.lantsoght@tudelft.nl

Ineffective Obsessions in Brazilian Academia and Proposals Towards Meritocracy

Keywords: Academia, Brazil, Faculty Position, Lattes CV, Meritocracy, Public Tender

Albeit its constitutional claim for quality, Brazilian academia has largely been referred to as unmeritocratic and academic hiring is still inward-oriented. Lattes platform, a public curricular information system, reflects elements of this protectionism. This article assesses two 'obsessions' in Brazilian academia: (i) the 'mandatory' Lattes CV, and (ii) the candidates' assessment criteria in public tenders for faculty positions. Several pros and cons (mostly) of the Lattes platform are identified. The following improvements are proposed: (i) evaluations in public tenders based only on candidate's CV, interview, and a sample lecture, (ii) the dismissal of Lattes CV as a mandatory format, and (iii) the use of platforms as Microsoft Academic, Google Scholar, ORCID or ResearcherID for curricular information. With these recommendations, Brazil can move towards a more meritocratic academic hiring system.

Introduction

Meritocracy is a system in which individuals make progress and gain the fruits of their own efforts. It uses pre-established criteria to assess people according to their performance, regardless their seniority and social networking. According to Barbosa [START_REF] Barbosa | Meritocracia à brasileira: o que é desempenho no Brasil? (in Portuguese)[END_REF] and Pinheiro [START_REF] Pinheiro | Brazil Is a Flawed Meritocracy in More Ways than Just One[END_REF], Brazil is a flawed meritocracy, since it (i) does not promote a fair assignment of citizens' own labor efforts, and (ii) endangers the entrepreneurial spirit by imposing bureaucracy and inefficient rules. Back in 1996, Barbosa [START_REF] Barbosa | Meritocracia à brasileira: o que é desempenho no Brasil? (in Portuguese)[END_REF] supported the idea that public tenders (i) employ unsuitable assessors and assessment methods, and/or (ii) allow biased results due to personal relations. In '3%', a 2016 Brazilian self-descriptive fictional work, merit can only be measured if one formulates the right maze of tests and administers them to every member of society in the same way [START_REF] Fan | A Brazilian Thriller That Exposes the Sinister Side of Meritocracy[END_REF]. This can be associated with what happens in Brazilian public tenders today, since their definition in the Federal Constitution of 1988 [START_REF] De Araújo | A Construção do Ethos Concurseiro: Mérito e Experiência Moral na Competição por Cargos Públicos[END_REF], and the case of academia is not excluded. There are meritocratic systems that select the best candidates by their qualifications and/or former performance records in certain tasks. Since academia is a place of innovation and knowledge production, one of its tasks should be the quest for paradigm changes, especially with respect to the traits desired for its employees [START_REF] Siqueira | Seleção de Docentes em Universidades Federais: uma análise dos regulamentos[END_REF]. The Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) launched in 1997 a curricular information system denominated Lattes (CNPq 2018a), in honor to Cesare Lattes, a worldrenowned Brazilian physicist [START_REF] Mena-Chalco | ScriptLattes: an open-source knowledge extraction system from the Lattes platform[END_REF]. CNPq's aim was to integrate all curricula of people associated to Brazilian scientific communities into a single database, through the so-called 'Lattes Curriculum' (also named Lattes CV in this manuscript) -a national 'standard' for most academics [START_REF] Mena-Chalco | ScriptLattes: an open-source knowledge extraction system from the Lattes platform[END_REF].

This article aims to describe, analyze, and propose alternatives for two critical 'obsessions' taking place in Brazilian academia for a long time: (i) the way candidates are assessed in public tenders for faculty positions, and (ii) the mandatory Lattes CV. In the authors' opinion, these two paradigms are seriously jeopardizing Brazil's development and pluralism in science and higher education -two major pillars of any society.

Current state of hiring processes in Brazil

Public tenders for academic positions

A study [START_REF] Siqueira | Seleção de Docentes em Universidades Federais: uma análise dos regulamentos[END_REF] that investigated the public tender assessment criteria for faculty positions in 59 Brazilian federal Universities concluded that most employ (i) a written exam, (ii) a sample lecture, and (iii) CV evaluation. Some include an extra assessment called 'Memorial', typically for full professor positions, where a research project is orally proposed. Sample lectures, where a shorter lecture is given for a jury in order to assess the didactic skills of the candidate, are always optional and depend on the decision of the administrative department in charge. The written exams cover 1-3 out of 10-20 topics, being only the latter publicly announced prior to the exam [START_REF] Siqueira | Seleção de Docentes em Universidades Federais: uma análise dos regulamentos[END_REF]. This evaluation is a standardized test, for which the candidate can study to obtain a good grade. The shortcomings of using a standardized test are described in section 3.1.

The final score of each candidate is the weighted sum of the partial scores in each type of assessment (typically on a 0-10 scale), as described in the bottom of Table 1. Siqueira et al. [START_REF] Siqueira | Seleção de Docentes em Universidades Federais: uma análise dos regulamentos[END_REF] found five distinct assessment criteria (i.e., weight distribution for all types of assessment), which are presented in Table 1 along with three others found in recent public tender calls. In most cases, the knowledge and CV assessments are the most and less weighted, respectively. In most public tenders in academia there is a qualifying phase, i.e. candidates are first classified, typically based on the written and/or oral exams (sometimes the sample lecture also -e.g. [START_REF]Edital de Abertura de Concurso Público Docente[END_REF]), and only those who score higher than a predetermined minimum proceed to the final stage of the selection procedure.

Use of the Lattes CV platform

'Lattes is like an idol, thus requiring to be fed everyday' [START_REF] Bertonha | Produção e produtividade no meio acadêmico: A "ditadura do Lattes" e a Universidade contemporânea[END_REF], perfectly and partially reflects the prevalent environment in Brazilian public universities. 'Perfectly' because Lattes CV has become almost an obsession for important sectors within academia (including private institutions) -e.g., it's a key element in selection processes for research funding or academic positions, and most public tenders for faculty positions recommend or require its use. 'Partially' because there is a reasonable number of full-time professors that 1. It is shown that roughly 60% and 40% of the curricula were not updated during the last 1.25 and 2.25 years, respectively, which reveals that either (i) the scientific productivity of those professionals is low, and/or (ii) Lattes CV is not effective enough to be the first choice for the vast majority of those users.

Analysis of current procedures

'Brazilian' public tenders for faculty positions

According to Fontainha [START_REF] Fontainha | Meritocracia e Concursos Públicos[END_REF], the individual success or failure in public tenders depends on attendees' capacity to adapt to the type of assessment employed. For the case of the hiring procedures in Brazil, the success of a candidate depends on how well he/she performs on (written and oral) standardized tests. Fontainha et al. [START_REF] Fontainha | Processos Seletivos para a Contratação de Servidores Públicos: Brasil, O País Dos Concursos?[END_REF] showed that public tenders are used to select people who are neither (i) the most experienced nor (ii) the most qualified. Indeed, this reality is not surprising when one realizes the dimension of the editorial and digital markets involved in the preparation of public tender candidates, as described next. Besides, Downie [START_REF] Downie | Brazilian Universities Find Challenges in Internationalization[END_REF] noted that the fact that the exams are in Portuguese is also a major barrier to hiring international faculty. Many public tender-oriented markets in Brazil have shown an increasing growth in the last years. De Araújo [START_REF] De Araújo | A Construção do Ethos Concurseiro: Mérito e Experiência Moral na Competição por Cargos Públicos[END_REF] highlights the following editorial references, among many available: (i) 'How to pass exams and public tenders' [START_REF] Douglas | Como passar em provas e concursos[END_REF] (more than 200.000 copies sold), (ii) 'How to study for public tenders' [START_REF] Meirelles | Como estudar para concursos[END_REF], and (iii) 'Manual for public tender attendees: the path of common people' [START_REF] Viegas | Manual de um concurseiro: o caminho das pessoas comuns[END_REF]. On the social media side, there is an interactive online platform [START_REF]Fórum Concurseiros[END_REF] to help in the preparation of public tenders, gathering more than 100.000 members. The major digital market consists of YouTube videos and channels -Figures 2-3 illustrate the registered 'popularity' on August 12 th 2018 ('concurso público Brasil' is Portuguese for 'public tender Brazil', and 'como passar em concurso público' is Portuguese for 'how to be approved in a public tender'). Figure 2 shows that five videos on the topic have more than 1 million views, and Figure 3 shows that out of 33 channels dedicated to the topic of passing public tenders, two have more than 700.000 subscribers. As mentioned before, the hiring decisions are heavily influenced by the written/oral exam grades of the candidate. Since the CV does not drive the hiring procedures (or only in a very limited amount of cases, see Table 1), candidates with poor CVs (e.g., poor scientific performance) do not have much less chances to be hired as professors as their outperforming counterparts. Studies suggest that public tenders in Brazil assess candidate's research skills in a very superficial way [START_REF] Siqueira | Seleção de Docentes em Universidades Federais: uma análise dos regulamentos[END_REF]. This lack of proven research qualities can be quite a hindrance, since a full-time professor's teaching load is around 20 h/week (Ziker measured it to be on average 24.5 h/week [START_REF] Ziker | Lonely Job of Homo academicus -Focusing the research lens on the professor's own schedule[END_REF]); i.e. roughly half of the working load should be assigned to research activities. Authors like Morin [START_REF] Morin | Introdução ao pensamento complexo[END_REF], Serres [START_REF] Serres | Filosofia mestiça: Le tiers instruit[END_REF], and Demo [START_REF] Demo | Avaliação sob o olhar propedêutico[END_REF] have mentioned for almost half a century that it is good practice that any teacher should be able to identify current research within their teaching. In other words, teaching without research results in courses with obsolete contents [START_REF] Siqueira | Seleção de Docentes em Universidades Federais: uma análise dos regulamentos[END_REF].

Lattes CV features

Several types of ineffective features found in Lattes CV are described next. 'Missing features' concerns essential information not possible to include or not mandatory when making the curriculum. 'Useless or Unappealing features' are aspects included in the platform that are perceived as such in terms of CV effectiveness for academic job applications. 'Inefficient features' are software issues that make the creation or updating of a Lattes CV a cumbersome task. Lastly, 'Erroneous Portuguese-English translation' contains several examples of how poorly the platform translates to English. Ultimately, a great (yet only) feature of Lattes CV is discussed. These analyses are carried out by evaluating randomly selected curricula on the Lattes platform.

Missing features

A key missing feature of any Lattes CV, worth highlighting in first place, is the lack of contact information such as (i) email address, (ii) phone number, or (iii) personal website(s), which is something negatively unique in the world -a CV without direct contact details. The only contacts sometimes provided are the home or institutional postal addresses, which are not relevant nowadays. This feature evidences the inward-oriented nature of Brazilian academia, as it was classified a decade ago [START_REF] Balbachevsky | Brazilian Academic Profession: some recent trends[END_REF].

When registering in the Lattes CV database [24], the 'Areas of expertise' section does not allow the user to select more than one scientific field of expertise, as shown in Figure 4. This improvement would be quite important, both to curriculum quality and to filter researchers when seeking new scientific collaborations. Multidisciplinarity is a requirement from an increasingly complex academic and technical panorama.

When opening existing Lattes CVs online, some have no English version attached, which means it is not mandatory and this feature attests once again the inward-oriented nature of Brazilian academia. The reader is referred to two random examples where there is [START_REF] Barham | s Lattes CV[END_REF] and there isn´t [START_REF] Marchesi | [END_REF] an English version available, respectively (see upper right corner options on each CV). Furthermore, comparing these two randomly selected profiles, another issue becomes evident: the profile picture is not obligatory. It´s not a significant issue, since employer and candidates always meet before hiring, but a curriculum displaying a headshot is a common practice in Latin America that allows attesting authenticity.

Some journal publications on Lattes CV do not exhibit either the Digital Object Identifier (DOI)'s hyperlink, issue number or even the title, thus meaning this information is not mandatory. This lacking information seems unacceptable, since (i) the title is crucial to identify the topic of the paper without leaving the platform, whereas (ii) the DOI's hyperlink allows a direct (either to purchase or to download) online access to the full-text manuscript on the journal's website. An example of this situation was randomly found [START_REF] Missau | s Lattes CV[END_REF] and is illustrated in Figure 5, where references 6 and 12 do not have any of the aforementioned information -though the metadata is fully available on the journals' websites as shown in Figure 6 and Figure 7 [START_REF] Pizzolatti | Analysis of Volatile Compounds Released From Flowers and Roots of Polygala cyparissias and Polygala paniculata by Headspace/SPME[END_REF][START_REF] Franco | Mercurial-Induced Hydrogen Peroxide Generation in Mouse Brain Mitochondria: Protective Effects of Quercetin[END_REF], respectively. Examples that should be followed are the reborn Microsoft Academic, and Google Scholar, where either (i) references are automatically found and included in one's profile (including a hyperlink to the article's official website), or (ii) a hyperlink is automatically created when a reference is manually added to an author's profile. Lattes CV does not impose word limits in some sections and fields, which may lead to curricula overloaded with information and unappealing from the recruiters' point of view. A random example can be found in reference [30].

Examples of useless platform features, for instance in the 'Formal education/Degree' section, are fields like (see random example in Figure 8, [31]): (i) Major Area (e.g., 'Linguistics, Letters and Arts'), (ii) Area (e.g., 'Letters'), (iii) Sub-Area (e.g., 'Literaturas Estrangeiras Modernas' -without English translation), and (iv) Specialty (e.g., 'Literatura em Língua Inglesa' -without English translation). Although not mandatory, the inclusion of those fields in the software is not beneficial, since there is a 'keywords' field that serves that purpose.

Lastly, some useless CV sections should be excluded or shortened, such as (e.g. [START_REF] Barham | s Lattes CV[END_REF]): (i) expanded abstracts and abstracts published in conference proceedings (considering most assessment criteria such abstracts are not relevant; only full conference papers or presentations are valued), (ii) participation in examination boards (since no scientific performance is involved in such decision processes), and (iii) academic advisory (relevant, although the information provided should not exceed the number and type of supervised works -e.g., in a small graph).

Inefficient features

An inefficient characteristic of Lattes CV is related to the 'Address and Contact' section of the registration platform [24]. Like the 'Areas of expertise' section in the same URL, there's no drop-down list with possible choices while typing in the professional institution, as illustrated in Figure 9 and Figure 10. Instead, one must (i) click on the search icon on the right (Figure 9), and then (ii) type in the institution's partial or full name and press 'search' (Figure 10). As shown in Figure 11, all institutions in the database having the entered name are then listed (and only one can be selected). However, if the target institution is not in the database, it can be added by clicking on 'click here' on the bottom-right side in Figure 11. The possibility of registering a new institution with no restrictions makes it quite messy and might lead to people actually belonging to the same institution, being associated to distinct ones in the database. Finally, say that one would pick an institution from the Netherlands (Figure 12), when returning to the previous window (Figure 13) one observes that the institutional country is not automatically set, even though any institution created or selected from the database is always associated to a specific country.

Erroneous Portuguese-English translation

This section illustrates, through a few examples, how erroneous or unsuitable the Portuguese-English translation of the platform is. Lack of research and technical lexicon is obvious, even though Lattes CV is mostly designed for researchers. Most cases presented herein were found while registering a new CV [24]. Nevertheless, so that the reader understands how general this issue might be, note that 'abstract' in the randomly selected profile referenced in [START_REF] Barham | s Lattes CV[END_REF] is translated as 'summary'. In Figure 14

A great (yet only) feature of Lattes CV

A very important feature in Lattes platform, although inexistent in the English version, as found when comparing the Portuguese and English versions of a randomly selected profile [START_REF] Barham | s Lattes CV[END_REF], is the indication per journal publication of the number of citations from the Web of Science (WoS), Scopus, and Scielo databases (i.e., given by 'articles indexed' there).

Suggestions towards meritocracy

The authors of this manuscript consider the current assessment method of a candidate's knowledge in public tenders highly questionable. The examination suggests disbelief of the candidates' qualifications, experience and skills included in their CVs, all fully proven by institutional certificates, letters of recommendation, and publication metrics. Furthermore, many candidates are graduated from the same institution where they are applying, meaning that even former students' evaluation is not valid to attest their knowledge for the future job. Perhaps the written or oral exams are a way to reduce the considerable number of candidates applying for so few open faculty positions. The authors' proposal for a suitable selection process in any public tender in academia, is the assessment of three elements: (i) full CV, (ii) interview, and (iii) 15 min sample lecture on a given subject (candidate's choice or faculty choice, depending on the teaching goals). Literature on recruiting processes in organizations has highlighted that the interview is one of the most effective instruments used [START_REF] Limongi-França | Práticas de recursos humanos -PRH[END_REF], being its adoption in academia recommended by Bohlander et al. [START_REF] Bohlander | Administração de recursos humanos; Pioneira Thomson Learning[END_REF]. A two-tier process, in which first a preselection of suitable candidates is made based on the CV, and then suitable candidates are invited for the interview and sample lecture, is recommended. For the interview, it is recommended to start with a short presentation of the candidate's previous experience and major achievements, followed by a discussion on his/her teaching and research goals. The interview should be taken by a balanced and diverse (with gender and racial diversity where possible) committee, which includes a student, a junior faculty member, a senior faculty member, and an exterior committee member.

A much easier, rational, and meritocratic way of filtering candidates, promoting equal opportunities, is proposed herein and is fully based on CV evaluation. A weighted formula should still be adopted (see Table 1) to evaluate the CV of a candidate. The weighted formula should include elements such as (i) grade average in specific graduation courses, (ii) grade average in specific postgraduate courses, (iii) final PhD classification, (iv) scientific performance (e.g., based on citation indexes proposed by Abambres and Arab [START_REF] Abambres | Citation Indexes Accounting for Authorship Order in Coauthored Research-Review and New Proposal[END_REF]), and (v) professional experience. When a position attracts candidates graduated from different countries/institutions, comparing grade averages can be mitigated by the local grading practices, unless (i) all grade systems are converted to a single one before averaging (based on institutional reputation), or (ii) other relative metrics are employed. The PhD classification can be used when the candidate graduates with a grade associated with the PhD degree. Moreover, the institution where the candidate graduated from can be evaluated for this classification. The professional experience evaluates the work experience of the candidate only. The teaching skills of the candidate will be evaluated separately in the sample lecture. Other elements that can be evaluated and added to the weighted formula, depending on the position, are: scholarships, prizes and other recognitions, service appointments (e.g., technical committees), and involvement with professional organizations (or their associated student chapters). The weight to be assigned to each of the categories used to evaluate the candidate's CV can be tailored to the academic position he/she is applying for. These procedures are recommended to have a better evaluation of the research performance of a candidate, since the new hire will dedicate roughly 50% of his/her time to research, as discussed in 3.1. Note that, for a faculty member to dedicate this amount of time to research, it is necessary that administrative tasks be taken by administrative employees. Whereas globally the trend is to reduce support staff and give more administrative tasks to professors, the authors' opinion is that sufficient administrative staff results in a more effective academia.

Discussion

The analysis in 3.2 describes the shortcomings of Lattes CV platform. In the authors' opinion, Lattes CV should not be imposed as a mandatory CV format in job or funding applications, and most of its features need to be improved to allow its effective use, as described and illustrated in the previously presented analysis. In order to overcome a crucial drawback, the authors recommend the automatic creation and updating of each CV based on information taken from far more effective, popular and renowned platforms such as Microsoft Academic, Google Scholar, ORCID, or ResearcherID. The authors consider that an effective CV should be as short as possible, and easy to read and compare (the same holds for the platform where the CV is built).

The feature of showing the number of citations mentioned in 3.2.5 could be introduced into these aforementioned existing platforms (e.g., Microsoft Academic, Google Scholar, Science Open, ResearchGate, ResearcherID), either explicitly, and/or implicitly by providing citation indexes per author based on the proposal of Abambres and Arab [START_REF] Abambres | Citation Indexes Accounting for Authorship Order in Coauthored Research-Review and New Proposal[END_REF], i.e. weighting the authorship order/credit in each publication, as well as the source (WoS, Scopus, or 'others') of each citation. The advantage of this approach is that it provides a combination of different indexing databases, whereas the current Lattes CV metrics separate the different indexing databases.

For the analysis presented in this paper, the authors requested the permission of CNPq to use screenshots of the Lattes platform and a few stored CVs. Unfortunately, receiving a reply to this request turned out to be rather complicated. Of the 4 contact emails found through the portal, 3 bounced back after writing an email to these accounts on October 15 th (1 email address) and 17 th of 2018 (3 addresses found on the website). Moreover, CNPq's Twitter account is not responsive when addressed (contacted on October 18 17 th and 18 th 2018). Finally, from the single email account that is in operation, the authors were suggested to place the request through the online system e-Ouv. Placing this request (October 19 th 2018) has not led to any reply yet. These complex procedures show that the operation of Lattes platform could be improved for queries such as the one described in this paragraph. Given the lack of responsiveness from CNPq, the authors opted not to show the landing pages of the CVs randomly selected for justification purposes, but (i) to provide the links to those profiles in the references, and (ii) to show (and cite) screenshots of the general pages for illustrative purposes. The permission for doing so is tacitly assumed by the lack of responsiveness described.

Based on the investigation carried out and authors' professional experiences, it's no surprise that the Brazilian academic market is still found to be inward-oriented, despite the stronger links with foreign academia. A limited number of foreign students and professionals (especially from outside Latin America) [START_REF] Downie | Brazilian Universities Find Challenges in Internationalization[END_REF] are found in Brazilian academia, and Brazilian scientists still [START_REF] Glänzel | Science in Brazil. Part 1: A macro-level comparative study[END_REF] publish a significant amount of work in national journals, which sometimes are only available in Portuguese. By limiting its capacity of attracting foreign talent, Brazilian academia fails not only to take advantage of the best possible candidates, either national or international, but also to promote diversity and pluralism.

Conclusions

This paper described two major ineffective Brazilian obsessions in academia -the pseudo-meritocratic public tender, and the Lattes CV. Alternatives to replace or improve these two paradigms were proposed, being the most important:

(i) Assessment of public tender attendees for faculty positions based on CV, interview, and short sample lecture. (ii) Waive Lattes CV as mandatory in job or funding applications, and use a regular CV instead. (iii) Allow Lattes CV to automatically be created or updated based on information taken from far more effective, popular, and renowned platforms such as Microsoft Academic, Google Scholar, ORCID or ResearcherID. Although the lack of research funding in Brazil is clearly the hot topic in the social and news media, this is clearly not the only solution its academia needs to globally thrive. The authors hope to have given a relevant contribution for Brazil to prosper academically and scientifically in the near future.

  Abambres M, Ribeiro T, Sousa A, Lantsoght E (2018). Ineffective Obsessions in Brazilian Academia and Proposals Towards Meritocracy, hal-02074849 © 2018 by Abambres M et al. (CC BY 4.0) 2

  Abambres M, Ribeiro T, Sousa A, Lantsoght E (2018). Ineffective Obsessions in Brazilian Academia and Proposals Towards Meritocracy, hal-02074849 © 2018 by Abambres M et al. (CC BY 4.0) 3 have a stable career and do not show any interest in upgrading it. Dias et al. [11] published a histogram of the number of Lattes CVs, among 4.156.635 (one per person) published by April 5 th 2015, last updated on each date in 1997-2015, as shown in Figure

Figure 1 .

 1 Figure 1. Number of Lattes CVs among 4.156.635 (published by 5/4/2015), last updated on each indicated date.

Figure 2 .

 2 Figure 2. YouTube video search results on August 12 th 2018 for 'concurso público Brasil' (public tender Brazil).

Figure 3 .

 3 Figure 3. YouTube channel search results on August 12 th 2018 for 'como passar em concurso público' (how to be approved in a public tender).

Figure 4 . 8 Figure 5 .

 485 Figure 4. Lattes CV registration [24]: only one field of expertise allowed.

Figure 6 .

 6 Figure 6. DOI, title, and issue information for paper 6 [28] in Figure 5.

Figure 7 .

 7 Figure 7. DOI, title, and issue information for paper 12 [29] in Figure 5.

Figure 8 . 10 3. 2 . 2 .

 81022 Figure 8. Example [31] of useless features: Major area, Area, Sub-Area, Specialty.

Figure 9 .

 9 Figure 9. Inefficient feature of Lattes CV's registration platform [24]: selecting the institution (step 1).

Figure 10 . 12 Figure 11 .

 101211 Figure 10. Inefficient feature of Lattes CV's registration platform [24]: selecting the institution (step 2).

13 Figure 12 .

 1312 Figure 12. Inefficient feature of Lattes CV's registration platform [24]: selecting an institution from the Netherlands.

Figure 13 . 15 Figure 14 .

 131514 Figure 13. Inefficient feature of Lattes CV's registration platform [24]: editable country field.

Figure 15 .

 15 Figure 15. Wrong translations in Lattes CV's section 'Areas of expertise' [24], within 'Phenomena of Transport'.

  Abambres M, Ribeiro T, Sousa A, Lantsoght E (2018). Ineffective Obsessions in Brazilian Academia and Proposals Towards Meritocracy, hal-02074849 © 2018 by Abambres M et al. (CC BY 4.0)

Table 1 .

 1 Weight distribution for distinct public tender assessment criteria.

	Type of Assessment	Written Exam (WE)	Oral Exam (OE)	Sample Class (SC)	CV	Memorial (M)
	What is Evaluated ?	Knowledge	Didactics	Qualifications + Pro/Academic Experience + Scientific Performance	Research Proposal
	I [5]	0.3	-	0.4	0.1	0.2
	II [5]	0.4	-	0.2	0.2	0.2
	III [5]	0.3	-	0.3	0.2	0.2
	IV [5]	0.5	-	0.3	0.2	-
	V [5]	0.3	-	0.3	0.4	-
	VI [8]	0.2	-	0.4	only PhD degree required	0.4
	VII [9]	0.4	-	0.3	0.1	0.2
	VIII [7]	0.4	0.4	0.2	0.1	-

Final Score (FS) for each candidate in a public tender

	FS = WWE SWE + WOE SOE + WSC SSC + WCV SCV + WM SM
	Wi = score weight for assessment type i
	Si = score obtained in assessment type i

© 2018 by Abambres M et al. (CC BY 4.0)


G Quarck

L Lhuisset

O Etard

P Denise

Eye eccentricity modifies the perception of whole-body rotation

Keywords: Vestibule, Vestibulo-ocular reflex, Orientation, Saccades, Eye movements, Alexander's law

In order to explore the effect of gaze orientation on whole body rotation perception, 10 healthy participants were rotated in the dark while fixating on a visual target located either straight ahead or 15° to the right. A vestibular-memory contingent saccade paradigm was used to estimate the rotation perception. The results attest to the participants' ability to accurately perceive their rotation, based solely on the intrinsic inputs (somesthetic and mainly vestibular), since the correlation between the imposed body rotation and the saccade amplitude was significant and positive.

However, the rotation perception was less accurate and of lesser magnitude when the gaze was deviated in the opposite direction to the rotation than when it was either straight ahead or deviated in the direction of the rotation. This can be interpreted as the perceptual equivalent of Alexander's law.

Introduction

Self-orientation and localisation in space is ensured through multimodal integration of sensory and motor signals such as visual, somesthetic and vestibular information as well as efference copies, depending on the context. When body motion occurs in darkness, the vestibular apparatus is of primary importance since it detects angular and linear acceleration of the head through semicircular canals and otoliths respectively; the head displacement is then retrieved by the brain through time integration of these signals. Several experimental procedures have been used to estimate the implication of the vestibular system in passive whole-body movement perception. In these studies, participants were passively rotated in darkness and were then asked to estimate the amplitude of their displacement. The estimation was assessed either verbally [START_REF] Brown | Magnitude estimation of angular velocity during passive rotation[END_REF]Blouin et al. 1995b;[START_REF] Jurgens | Estimation of self-turning in the dark: comparison between active and passive rotation[END_REF] or through the reproduction of the perceived movement with either self-control re-orienting movement in response to rotation [START_REF] Metcalfe | Self-controlled reorienting movements in response to rotational displacements in normal subjects and patients with labyrinthine disease[END_REF][START_REF] Siegler | Self-motion perception during a sequence of whole-body rotations in darkeness[END_REF][START_REF] Israel | Reproduction of self-rotation duration[END_REF], manual pointing or remote control tasks (Blouin et al. 1995a;[START_REF] Mergner | Visual object localisation in space. Interaction of retinal, eye position, vestibular and neck proprioceptive information[END_REF] or the so-called vestibular-memory contingent saccade task [START_REF] Bloomberg | Vestibular-contingent voluntary saccades based on cognitive estimates of remembered vestibular information[END_REF][START_REF] Bloomberg | Adaptive modification of vestibularly perceived rotation[END_REF][START_REF] Israel | Vestibular perception of passive whole-body rotation about horizontal and vertical axes in humans: goal-directed vestibulo-ocular reflex and vestibular memory-contingent saccades[END_REF][START_REF] Blouin | Visual object localization through vestibular and neck inputs. 2: Updating off-mid-sagittal-plane target positions[END_REF][START_REF] Mergner | Eye movements evoked by proprioceptive stimulation along the body axis in humans[END_REF]. Results showed that passive body rotation in darkness seems to be well reproduced through ocular saccades. Different studies [START_REF] Bloomberg | Vestibular-contingent voluntary saccades based on cognitive estimates of remembered vestibular information[END_REF][START_REF] Bloomberg | Adaptive modification of vestibularly perceived rotation[END_REF][START_REF] Israel | Vestibular perception of passive whole-body rotation about horizontal and vertical axes in humans: goal-directed vestibulo-ocular reflex and vestibular memory-contingent saccades[END_REF][START_REF] Blouin | Visual object localization through vestibular and neck inputs. 2: Updating off-mid-sagittal-plane target positions[END_REF] showed a high correlation between the amplitude of the vestibular-memory contingent saccade and the amplitude of the rotation. In these studies, participants first fixated a centrally placed earth-fixed target and were then submitted to whole-body rotation in darkness while maintaining ocular fixation on a head-fixed target (to suppress the Vestibulo-ocular reflex). Upon completion of rotation participants then had to execute an ocular saccade toward the estimated initial location of the earth-fixed target.

It is known, however, that the central treatment of the vestibular input can be affected by the position of the eyes in the orbit. In fact, a phenomenon known as the Alexander's law (see [START_REF] Robinson | Alexander's law: its behavior and origin in the human vestibulo-ocular reflex[END_REF][START_REF] Evanoff | Influence of voluntary ocular deviation on vestibular nystagmus[END_REF]) states that the nystagmus is more intense when the gaze is oriented in the quick-phase direction (i.e. same direction as the rotation) than in the slow-phase direction (i.e. opposite direction to the rotation). Since the eye position relative to rotation direction affects central vestibular processing, one can reasonably question the effect of this parameter on the perception derived from peripheral vestibular input. Yet, in studies using the vestibular-memory contingent saccade procedure [START_REF] Bloomberg | Vestibular-contingent voluntary saccades based on cognitive estimates of remembered vestibular information[END_REF][START_REF] Bloomberg | Adaptive modification of vestibularly perceived rotation[END_REF][START_REF] Blouin | Visual object localization through vestibular and neck inputs. 2: Updating off-mid-sagittal-plane target positions[END_REF][START_REF] Mergner | Eye movements evoked by proprioceptive stimulation along the body axis in humans[END_REF], the gaze was always directed straight ahead during the rotation and therefore the effect of eye position relative to rotation direction on the perception of this rotation could not be investigated. The aim of our study was to address this question, by applying whole-body rotations to normal participants and studying the effect of initial eye position (either straight ahead or 15° to the right) on vestibular memory contingent saccade performance. .

Material and method

Participants

Ten young adults (mean age 21.1  1.4 years; 3 women and 7 men) took part in this study. They had normal or corrected to normal vision and didn't present any vestibular pathology, as assessed through an otological physical examination. Local ethics committee approval and a written informed consent from the participants were obtained. The study was conducted according to guidelines set by the Helsinki Declaration for the treatment of experimental participants.

Apparatus and material

Participants sat in the darkness on a computer controlled motorized rotatory chair with their head upright and restrained with a bite-bar so that the chair rotation would induce an associated head and body rotation. Two light emitting diodes (LEDs) were fixed onto the chair (chair-fixed targets) at a distance of 1 metre in front of the participants: one was positioned straight ahead and the other 15° to the right. Given that the LEDs were fixed onto the rotating chair, they were stationary relative to the participants.

Horizontal eye movements (bitemporal derivation) and vertical eye movements of one eye were measured by AC electro-oculography (EOG). All testing was performed with the participant's eyes open in darkness. A full calibration sequence (steps of 5° from 0° to 25° in each four directions) was applied at the start, in the middle and at the end of each experimental session. Furthermore, a horizontal eye movement calibration sequence (+15°/-15°) was applied systematically after each trial. This second calibration sequence was carried out to make sure that the former one remained valid throughout the experimental session. Since this was indeed the case, the full calibration sequence was used to calibrate the data. Chair position, horizontal and vertical EOG, and LED signals were sampled on-line at 100 Hz (Gould amplificator, 0.05Hz highpass cutoff frequency) and recorded on the same PC that controlled chair rotation (software Asamo developed in our lab).

Task and procedure

Participants were subjected to rotations randomly ranging from 3 to 30 degrees to the left or to the right, meaning that the same stimulation was never presented twice. After an acceleration of 10°s -2 for up to 1 second, subjects were rotated at a constant velocity of 10°s -1 for a maximum of 2 seconds, then decelerated at -10°s -2 . For amplitude less than 10°, there was no constant velocity phase and acceleration and deceleration phases were shorter. Participants performed 20 to 23 trials in each fixation condition (chair-fixed target straight ahead or 15° to the right). One second before the beginning of the rotation, one of the 2 chair-fixed targets was illuminated. Participants were instructed to fix their gaze on the chair-fixed target until it was extinguished at the end of the rotation. The participant's task was then to direct their gaze towards the estimated initial spatial location of the fixation point as accurately as possible. The participants were allowed to make several successive saccades to improve their accuracy, however, they mostly performed only one saccade. After a delay of 1500 ms, the LED, in its actual position after the rotation, was lit again and the participants had to foveate it. This foveation was always performed in one saccade of equal amplitude of the cumulative saccade size but in the opposite direction. We chose to analyse the amplitude of this saccade due to the fact that it was more precise and simpler to quantify.

Data analysis

The data were submitted to different analyses (linear regression, correlation and ANOVAs) depending on the question of interest. The details of these analyses are provided in the Results section whereappropriate. For the ANOVAs, Greenhouse-Geisser correction was applied when the Epsilon value was smaller than 1 [START_REF] Greenhouse | On the methods in the analysis of profile data[END_REF]; see also [START_REF] Winer | Statistical principles in experimental design[END_REF]. Because the correction did not modify the outcome of these analyses, we reported the data using the original degrees of freedom. All significant main effects and interactions were further delineated using the Newman-Keuls technique. Statistical tests were performed using Statistica Software® (Statsoft, Tulsa, USA). Threshold of statistical significance was set to 0.05.

Results

Linear regression and correlation

Simple linear regression and correlation between the saccade amplitude and initial head movement were used to evaluate the participant's accuracy in judging the magnitude of the vestibular stimulation (i.e. head movement). This was calculated for all participants, for each fixation point (central / 15° to the right) and for each rotation direction (left / right) (Fig1.). For each condition, a straight line fitted to all the data. The slopes of the relations were 0.80 and 0.53 for the central fixation point, and 0.36 and 0.71 for the 15° fixation point (left and right rotation respectively). In each condition, the correlations were both positive and significant (p<0.001): r=0.53 (n=109) and r=0.51 (n=118) for the central fixation point, and r=0.38 (n=106) and r=0.51 (n=119) for the 15° fixation point (left and right rotation respectively).

- ------------------------------------------------------Insert Figure 1 approximately here -------------------------------------------------------We furthermore calculated the individual linear regression parameters between the saccade amplitude and rotation amplitude (see Table 1). The regression slopes for each condition were submitted to a 2 Fixation point position (central / 15° to the right) x 2 Rotation directions (left / right) ANOVA, with repeated measurements on both factors to evaluate the effect of eye position on head rotation perception . The ANOVA revealed a significant main effect of Rotation direction, F

(1, 9) = 6.83 as well as a significant Fixation point position x Rotation direction interaction, F (1, 9) = 5.31. It revealed a significantly lower slope when the rotation occurred in the opposite direction to the fixation point (i.e. to the left) when the latter was not centered, whereas there was no difference based on rotation direction when the fixation point was centered.

Rotation perception error

In order to quantify the accuracy of the perceived chair (head) rotation and its reproduction, we calculated the difference (in degrees) between the saccade amplitude and the chair rotation amplitude, hereafter referred to as rotation perception error. A positive value therefore represents an overestimation of the head rotation and a negative value represents an underestimation.

Differences in the oculo-motor task between left and right rotations when the fixation point was not centered (15° to the right) could affect perception error. Indeed, for the left rotation, participants were forced to produce a further ex-centration of their gaze, while for the right rotation; they made a re-centering saccade (i.e. toward their midline). Furthermore, in this last condition, saccades bigger than 15° crossed the midline while the others did not. In order to take into account possible effects of oculo-motor task on perception error, we identified three types of rotation: (1) around 15 degrees (from 13 to 17 degrees), (2) under 13 degrees and (3) over 17 degrees, then submitted the rotation perception error to a 2 Rotation direction x 3 Type of rotation ANOVA, with repeated measurements on both factors. The ANOVA revealed a main effect of Type of rotation, F (2, 18) = 27.12. Its breakdown showed an overestimation for the smallest rotations (+2.76° mean error for rotations inferior to 13 degrees) and an underestimation for the largest rotations (-4.62° mean error for rotations superior to 17 degrees), while errors were minimal (-0,54° mean error) for rotations between 13 and 17 degrees. The ANOVA also revealed a significant Rotation direction x Type of rotation interaction, F (2, 18) = 3.86 illustrated in Figure 2. Its breakdown revealed a significant difference between leftward and rightward rotations, though only for rotations of 13 to 17 degrees.

In these cases, leftward rotations were overestimated whereas rightward rotations were underestimated (mean errors of +1.10° and -2.19° respectively).

- ------------------------------------------------------Insert Figure 2 approximately here -------------------------------------------------------

Discussion

The main goal of this study was to determine the effect of eye position on the vestibularly derived perception of passive body rotations. Our results indicate that, in line with previous studies [START_REF] Bloomberg | Vestibular-contingent voluntary saccades based on cognitive estimates of remembered vestibular information[END_REF][START_REF] Bloomberg | Adaptive modification of vestibularly perceived rotation[END_REF][START_REF] Israel | Vestibular perception of passive whole-body rotation about horizontal and vertical axes in humans: goal-directed vestibulo-ocular reflex and vestibular memory-contingent saccades[END_REF][START_REF] Mergner | Eye movements evoked by proprioceptive stimulation along the body axis in humans[END_REF], participants can perform appropriate ocular saccade in the dark after a step change of head position. Since no visual and auditory information was available, and the head remained fixed on the body, these saccades therefore represent the vestibularly derived perception of the body displacement. We also noted that saccades were less representative of body displacement when the eyes were deviated in the opposite direction to the rotation, suggesting a less accurate and decreased perception of the rotation in this condition.

Body rotation perception

The experimental procedure used in this study was based on the vestibular-memory contingent saccade paradigm in which participants must reproduce the perceived body rotation through an ocular saccade. Our results show a significant positive correlation between the imposed body rotation and the saccade amplitude, indicating an accurate perception of the rotation through vestibular inputs, which is in line with previous findings [START_REF] Bloomberg | Vestibular-contingent voluntary saccades based on cognitive estimates of remembered vestibular information[END_REF][START_REF] Bloomberg | Adaptive modification of vestibularly perceived rotation[END_REF][START_REF] Israel | Vestibular perception of passive whole-body rotation about horizontal and vertical axes in humans: goal-directed vestibulo-ocular reflex and vestibular memory-contingent saccades[END_REF]Blouin et al. 1995a;[START_REF] Blouin | Visual object localization through vestibular and neck inputs. 2: Updating off-mid-sagittal-plane target positions[END_REF]. The slope of the relationship between rotation amplitude and saccade amplitude is however lower in our study (0.67) than in the first studies using this experimental paradigm (0.84 and 0.82 respectively in [START_REF] Bloomberg | Vestibular-contingent voluntary saccades based on cognitive estimates of remembered vestibular information[END_REF][START_REF] Bloomberg | Adaptive modification of vestibularly perceived rotation[END_REF]). Threecombined methodological factors can explain these variations:

(1) absence of any type of visual feedback, (2) absence of repetition of the stimulation, and (3) presence of a constant velocity plateau during the largest stimulations. (1) In Bloomberg's studies, participants could use extrinsic visual information concerning their position in the room between each rotation since the lights were turned on between the trials. On the contrary, in our study, participants evaluated their displacement through intrinsic vestibular input only as they remained in the dark during the whole experiment (i.e. the rotation, the subsequent saccade and the time before the next trial). This could partially explain our lower slopes. In fact, [START_REF] Blouin | Visual object localization through vestibular and neck inputs. 2: Updating off-mid-sagittal-plane target positions[END_REF][START_REF] Israel | Vestibular perception of passive whole-body rotation about horizontal and vertical axes in humans: goal-directed vestibulo-ocular reflex and vestibular memory-contingent saccades[END_REF] obtained lower regression slopes (0,79) using the same type of stimulation as Bloomberg's (5 repetitions of 6 amplitudes), but without any type of visual feedback available. Thus, in Bloomberg's studies, the visual information seems to be used in subsequent trials either as a type of Knowledge of Results or as a way to calibrate the vestibular system. Accordingly, it has been shown that in the presence of visual feedback, error performed during a vestibular-memory contingent saccade paradigm decreased in less than 4 trials [START_REF] Israel | Vestibular information contributes to update retinotopic maps[END_REF]. ( 2) Also, contrarily to all the previously cited studies [START_REF] Bloomberg | Vestibular-contingent voluntary saccades based on cognitive estimates of remembered vestibular information[END_REF][START_REF] Bloomberg | Adaptive modification of vestibularly perceived rotation[END_REF][START_REF] Israel | Vestibular perception of passive whole-body rotation about horizontal and vertical axes in humans: goal-directed vestibulo-ocular reflex and vestibular memory-contingent saccades[END_REF][START_REF] Blouin | Visual object localization through vestibular and neck inputs. 2: Updating off-mid-sagittal-plane target positions[END_REF]) that used step changes of no more than six angular amplitudes randomly presented several times, we used rotations randomly ranging from 3 to 30 degrees meaning that participants were never submitted twice to the same displacement amplitude. Thus no estimate could be deduced from the past trials that could explain our lower regression slopes compared to [START_REF] Blouin | Visual object localization through vestibular and neck inputs. 2: Updating off-mid-sagittal-plane target positions[END_REF] and [START_REF] Israel | Vestibular perception of passive whole-body rotation about horizontal and vertical axes in humans: goal-directed vestibulo-ocular reflex and vestibular memory-contingent saccades[END_REF]. ( 3) Finally, in the stimulation we used, velocity could remain constant for up to 2s during the largest rotation (30°). Thus, owing to the fact that the central time-constant of the peripheral system in human has been estimated at 17.5s [START_REF] Honrubia | Comparison of vestibular subjective sensation and nystagmus responses during computerized harmonic acceleration tests[END_REF], the central vestibular activity could have been decreased by a maximum of 12% at the end of the 2s velocity plateau. That could partly account for the observed underestimation of the perceived rotation and its variability.

To conclude, our results show that, in absence of any type of extrinsic information, one can appropriately evaluate completely random body displacement through mainly vestibular inputs.

Furthermore, it seems that any additional extrinsic information about the displacement, even indirect such as visual information of spatial position as it was the case in Bloomberg's studies, can enhance the precision of the whole body rotation perception.

Even though vestibular signal is likely to play a major role in the perception of the rotation, one could argue that the estimation of rotation duration might also have been used to evaluate body displacement. The reason being that in our study as well as in others [START_REF] Bloomberg | Vestibular-contingent voluntary saccades based on cognitive estimates of remembered vestibular information[END_REF][START_REF] Bloomberg | Adaptive modification of vestibularly perceived rotation[END_REF], rotation amplitude was controlled through rotation duration. However, in addition to the fact that a recent study showed that rotation duration is poorly reproduced after passive self-rotation [START_REF] Israel | Reproduction of self-rotation duration[END_REF], the profile of stimulation we used did not allow participants to rely on duration estimation to accurately evaluate body displacement. This is due to the fact that amplitude was not proportional to time (amplitude = 2.5 x t 2 for rotations smaller than 10° and amplitude = 10 x (t -1) for rotations greater than 10°),nor to velocity. Therefore, it would have been very difficult for participants to estimate the amplitude of body rotation from duration or velocity. Whereas in studies using a bell-shaped velocity profile of constant duration [START_REF] Israel | Vestibular perception of passive whole-body rotation about horizontal and vertical axes in humans: goal-directed vestibulo-ocular reflex and vestibular memory-contingent saccades[END_REF][START_REF] Blouin | Visual object localization through vestibular and neck inputs. 2: Updating off-mid-sagittal-plane target positions[END_REF], there is a linear relationship between the maximum velocity and the amplitude of rotation which can be used by the participant to estimate body displacement.

Thus, the significant correlation we obtained between imposed body rotation and saccade amplitude can't be explained by duration reproduction, but can only result from rotation perception based on vestibular input. Taken together, these results indicate that one can correctly evaluate body displacement in total darkness through intrinsic inputs only (mainly vestibular).

Effect of eye position on body rotation perception

During a passive body rotation, the eye position within the orbit appears to play a role in rotation perception. Whilst the perception was equivalent when the eyes were straight-ahead or deviated in rotation direction, this perception seemed less accurate and of less magnitude when the eyes were deviated in the direction opposite to the rotation. In fact, in this latter condition, we observed both significantly lower regression slopes and lower correlation coefficient in the relationship between imposed body rotation and saccade amplitude (see Figure 1). Nonetheless, the correlation remained positive and significant, suggesting that the rotation of the body is still perceived, but in a less effective way. It is well known that the vestibulo-occular response is affected by the position of the eyes within the orbit with a reduced response when the eyes are orientated in the opposite direction to the rotation as stated by Alexander's law [START_REF] Robinson | Alexander's law: its behavior and origin in the human vestibulo-ocular reflex[END_REF][START_REF] Evanoff | Influence of voluntary ocular deviation on vestibular nystagmus[END_REF].

However, the consequences of this phenomenon on perception remained unexplored. Our results show that perception is affected in a similar way to the neurophysiological signal, which leads us to consider this phenomenon as an extension of Alexander's law to the perceptive side. This would stipulate that the perception of head displacement is reduced when the eyes are deviated in the opposite direction to the rotation. This finding is coherent with observations reported by Evanoff and Lackner [START_REF] Evanoff | Influence of voluntary ocular deviation on vestibular nystagmus[END_REF] where participants experienced difficulty in voluntarily maintaining ocular deviation in the opposite direction to body rotation. Furthermore, the fact that eye position within the orbit affects the vestibulo-ocular reflex as well as the perception of body rotation, allows us to postulate on neurological substrate that are responsible for this effect. One can hypothesize that the signal carrying information on eye position, originating from eye proprioception or from corollary discharge, alters the peripheral vestibular signal integration before oculomotor and cortical pathway dissociation.

There is however, an alternative and/or complementary hypothesis which could account for our results. It concerns differences in the oculo-motor task when the eyes are deviated either in the opposite direction to body rotation or in the same direction. In the former condition, a further excentration of the gaze had to be produced, while in the latter condition, it was a re-centration. These re-centration saccades could be expected to be more precise, especially when they ended along a participant's midline, which has been proposed to act as an anchor of the egocentric frame of reference [START_REF] Jeannerod | The neural and behavioral organization of goal-directed movements[END_REF][START_REF] Jeannerod | Egocentric reference and represented space[END_REF][START_REF] Chokron | Correlation between the position of the egocentric reference and right neglect signs in left-brain-damaged patients[END_REF][START_REF] Lhuisset | Planning and control of straight-ahead and angled planar movements in adults and young children[END_REF]. We tested this hypothesis by comparing saccades for different body rotation amplitudes in both rotation directions to evaluate the effect of a person's midline attraction on the saccade production. More precisely, we distinguished between saccades inferior and superior to 15°.

When the eyes were deviated in the direction of the rotation, saccades inferior to 15° remained in the right hemispace while saccades superior to 15° had to cross someone's midline. If someone's midline plays as an attractor on the saccade production, the former saccades should be hypermetric, the latter ones hypometric and the 15° saccades, ending along someone's midline, the most precise.

We indeed obtained hypermetric saccades for rotations inferior to 15° and hypometric saccades for rotations superior to 15° when the eyes were deviated in the direction of the rotation. This could have suggested that someone's midline plays a role as an egocentric reference in the saccade production. However, a similar pattern of results was also present when the eyes were deviated in the opposite direction to the rotation. Furthermore, saccades following a 15° rotation were no more accurate for the former eye positioning than for the latter. It seems therefore that regardless of the direction of eye deviation, smaller rotations are overestimated when larger rotations are underestimated as it has been previously reported by Bloomberg et al [START_REF] Bloomberg | Vestibular-contingent voluntary saccades based on cognitive estimates of remembered vestibular information[END_REF][START_REF] Bloomberg | Adaptive modification of vestibularly perceived rotation[END_REF]. This phenomenon can be related to a general psychophysical outcome known as the range effect [START_REF] Slack | Some characteristics of the 'Range effect[END_REF] and inducing an estimate biased toward the middle range of all the stimulations.

Conclusion

In conclusion, we have demonstrated an effect of eye position within the orbit on body rotation perception based solely on intrinsic inputs (i.e. vestibular and somesthetic information). This effect indicates a poorer and decreased perception when the eyes are deviated in the opposite direction to the rotation. This can be related to a physiological phenomenon known as Alexander's law stipulating less intense nystagmus when the gaze is oriented in the opposite direction to the rotation and one can consider the effect we observed as an extension of Alexander's law to perceptive aspects. It is worth noting the inferior slope and inferior Pearson coefficient with a non centered fixation point occurring only when the rotation is in the opposite direction to the fixation point.

Figure captions

Fig. 1

 1 Fig. 1 Amplitude of saccadic eye movement (perceived rotation amplitude) versus amplitude of whole body rotation (real rotation amplitude) plotted for all participants. Each point is the result of one trial of one participant. Solid lines give the simple regression line fitted to the data.

Fig. 2

 2 Fig. 2 Mean errors of rotation perception (+ standard error of the mean) as a function of rotation amplitude in the non-centered fixation condition.

19

Table 1. Individual linear regression parameters between the saccade amplitude and the rotation amplitude as a function of fixation point position and rotation direction.

Note the higher individual r 2 as compared to when all participants are considered in the same linear regression (Fig. 1).