Arabic-Illiterate Forensic Handwriting Analysis: A Pilot Study to Further Investigate the Ability of Arabic-Illiterate Examiners to Judge theAccuracy of Simulations of ArabicSignatures, Compared with Arabic-Literate Examiners

This article extends the study in Al-Musa (2010) examining whether forensic handwriting examiners (FHEs) who are illiterate in Arabic can detect Arabic forgeries as accurately as FHEs who have native fluency in Arabic. Because large numbers of real forgeries are difficult to find, the forgery data in these two pilot studies consisted of simulations, produced by 100 native Arabic writers, of two Arabic signatures. Two experienced Arabic-literate FHEs and two experienced Arabic-illiterate FHEs then judged the accuracy of these simulations, using standard forensic handwriting analysis methods. Their judgments of four narrow elements of the simulations (Size, Spacing, Arrangement, and Slant), as well as two of the broader elements studied in the 2010 article (Form and Line Quality), were compared. As in the earlier study, the judgments of Arabic-literate FHEs did not differ significantly from those of Arabic- illiterate FHEs (p  0.05). Thus, a second statistical study adds support to a widespread view held by FHEs, based on anecdote and experience, that literacy in a script is not needed to detect forgery in that script. Other considerations, however, suggest that a native writer of a script may have advantages over an illiterate in that script in conducting forensic handwriting analysis.