The Effects of Constraining Signatures

Forensic document examiners are often asked to determine the authenticity or otherwise of signatures on official government forms, most of which use a line or box for the signature space; but the extent to which such lines and boxes affect a natural signature is relatively unknown. Six types of constraints encountered in everyday signature examinations were investigated. All constraints significantly affected the size of the signatures, and anomalies appeared in the constrained signatures (extra artifacts, reduction in complexity, lack of fluency, and hesitation marks).