Abstract

Background

The present study aims to examine the extent of variation in genuine handwriting characteristics across 10 years. One hundred samples (one admitted handwriting and three exemplars) were collected from 25 subjects (male and female, age ranging from 30 to 55) using purposive sampling technique. The admitted handwriting sample included documents like notebooks, wills, diaries, and record books that had been written 10years earlier, and 3 exemplars with the same information, written now in a similar kind of material. Both individual and class characteristics were analyzed in admitted as well as three exemplars which includes size of letters, slant, i-dot, t-bar (diacritics), humped letters (m, n, h), and formation of rounded letters (o, a, d, b, g, p, q).

Results

Cohen’s kappa showed that there is a significant agreement between admitted and exemplars in the characteristics except for size.

Conclusion

The results imply that once an adult has acquired a particular handwriting pattern, the master pattern of each letter, as well as both class and individual characteristics, remain unchanged. The size of the letters may change across age.

Details

Title
Genuine handwriting variations in 10 years: a pilot study
Author
Wilson, Thomas Mebin 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Rajan Santhosh Kareepadath 2 

1  JAIN (Deemed to be University), Department of Forensic Science, Bangalore, India 
2  CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Department of Psychology, Bangalore, India 
Publication year
2019
Publication date
Dec 2019
Publisher
Springer Nature B.V.
ISSN
2090-536X
e-ISSN
2090-5939
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/s41935-019-0154-2
ProQuest document ID
2273096536
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2019. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.