Is it possible to estimate sex from signatures and handwriting? A review of literature, observations, and future perspectives.
Forensic identification
Human behaviour
Sexual dimorphism
Signatures and handwriting
Writing and peculiar features
Journal
Die Naturwissenschaften
ISSN: 1432-1904
Titre abrégé: Naturwissenschaften
Pays: Germany
ID NLM: 0400767
Informations de publication
Date de publication:
03 Jul 2023
03 Jul 2023
Historique:
received:
03
05
2023
accepted:
23
06
2023
revised:
21
06
2023
medline:
5
7
2023
pubmed:
3
7
2023
entrez:
3
7
2023
Statut:
epublish
Résumé
Estimation of sex holds great significance in the field of Forensic Science since it helps establish the identity of an individual during a crime scene investigation. Sex differences in human behaviour are the result of natural selection. Sexually dimorphic stimuli of cognitive and behavioural activities may influence the phenotypic expression of our motor skills. Human traits such as signatures and handwriting are phenotypic manifestation of these skills. These phenotypic biological and behavioural traits have inherent sexual dimorphism and may help to identify sex in different circumstances. For instance, to establish the sex of an individual or deceased, forensic samples of the human body such as voice samples, features of fingerprints and footprints, the skeleton, or its remains are helpful. Similarly, the sex of an individual may also be identified from their corresponding handwriting and signature. Handwriting experts can extract peculiar features from handwriting and signatures which could help establish whether the signatures belong to a male or a female. A female writer may have attractive, rounded, upright, tidy, skilled, well-formed strokes, artistic design, better penmanship, and greater length of the signature compared to the signature of a male. Here, we review the studies related to the identification of sex from signatures and handwriting and present inferences about vital features and methods of sex identification through handwriting. These mainly suggest that the accuracy of sex prediction from signature and handwriting ranges from 45 to 80%. We also present writing examples to show sex-based differences in the signature and handwriting of males and females. The female's handwriting is more decorative, arranged, aligned, neat, and clean as compared to that of the male. Based on the writing samples and the review of literature, we suggest that forensic handwriting experts may eliminate suspects based on the sex of the writer, which can simplify the identification process of disputed or questionable signatures and handwriting.
Identifiants
pubmed: 37395867
doi: 10.1007/s00114-023-01862-9
pii: 10.1007/s00114-023-01862-9
doi:
Types de publication
Journal Article
Review
Langues
eng
Sous-ensembles de citation
IM
Pagination
32Informations de copyright
© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.
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