Determination of characteristics of disguised signatures amongst Malaysian

Abstract

Verification of the signature is critical because there is no two identical signatures by the same person and no two persons write alike. Signatures are used on a wide range of documents, many of which bind an individual to an agreement, as such, signature forgery is common. By disguising his signature, an individual may hope to disclaim it at a later date, so as to exonerate himself from any consequences that may be linked to the document. In this study, 100 respondents were selected randomly amongst Malaysian in an equal amount of both genders. The respondents were required to produce five disguised signatures and a single genuine signature for comparison. The signatures were analyzed using magnifying glass. Out of 34 disguised characteristics observed, only 30 characteristics were observed from 50 male respondents while 32 characteristics were observed from 50 female respondents. The highest percentages for both genders were recorded for characteristic structural detail differ which exhibited 38% and 50% respectively. Female respondents showed higher percentage than male respondents for 21 characteristics out of 34 characteristics observed in this study. Besides, female respondents used up to twelve characteristics when disguising their signatures compared to male respondents which only used one to seven characteristics. Based on these findings, female respondents were more likely to use a variety of features during the disguising process which shows that they were more prone to do mistakes during the disguising process compared to male respondents.