Influence of Age, Gender and Handedness in Signature Imitation

This article studies the influence of age, gender, and handedness on the ability of student volunteers to simulate signatures. The students were enrolled in an introductory course in Hospitality, Tourism, and Event Management at the Metropolitan State College of Denver. The majority learned to write during the 1980s. The volunteers were provided genuine signatures by older writers who learned to write using the Palmer System. The simulations were done in 2 sessions, the 1st with no instructions on how to imitate a signature. A week later the same students were asked to repeat the exercise, but this time with some instructions in how to copy a signature. The students were given an incentive of earning extra points on their grade for good efforts.
The students’ forgeries were then evaluated by a forensic document examiner and graded as to quality. In general, the students created very poor forgeries. The females performed slightly better than the males, particularly after instruction, but even those efforts were not very good.