Statistical examination of common characteristics for disguised handwriting amongst Malaysian

Abstract

Every Individual’s style of handwriting ls unique and has Its own personalized touch. As an individual attempts to disguise their own handwriting with the intent of later disclaiming it, there is a need to perform examination of handwritten documents to determine the authorship of a questioned document or detect evidence of forgery or disguise. This research proposed a microscopic and statistical examination of handwriting characteristics. Two handwriting specimens were involved which are normal and disguised handwriting specimen forms. The normal handwriting of 60 respondents were examined and classified into class characteristic (script types, letter size, slant, angularity alignment and word spacing) and individual characteristic of letters "a", "e", "g", "y", "d", "f ’, "h", "o", "E" and "D" and grapheme "th". The other set of 50 sets of handwriting were requested for comparison between disguised and normal handwritings. A statistical technique known as Pearson Chi-squared (x2) test was performed to determine the relationship between race, gender, age, first education system, education level and occupation with the normal habits of handwriting. The results show that the handwriting can be uniquely classified. Based on the Chi-squared (x2) value, the script types were affected by gender (x2 = 0.009) and age (x2 = 0.006). The letter size and slant were only dependent on the factor of age (x2 = 0.022) and education level (x2 = 0.034), respectively. Angularity of handwriting was affected by the gender and education system. However, alignment and word spacing were not affected. During disguising their own handwriting, respondents tend to change the letter size, slant, initial capital letter and the speed of the writing, while the word spacing became inconsistent. Some person was really good in disguising the alphanumerical form but another person cannot disguise their handwriting as they maintained the script type of the writing.