Investigating Forensic Document Examiner Opinions on Signatures in aForeign Script

There have been court challenges in various countries around the world bringing into question the validity of forensic document examiners (FDEs) expressing expert opinions on writing systems other than those with which they are familiar. A study was designed to assess whether FDEs are significantly better at evaluating the authenticity of questioned signatures in a familiar script than FDEs who are faced with an unfamiliar one. Volunteer FDEs familiar with Chinese script, those unfamiliar with the script, and a group of laypeople were provided with a series of small validation tests in a blinded fashion. The theoretical paradigms used by FDEs to form the basis of expert opinion in this area were explored, together with a discussion on how these results may be generalised to the overall FDE population, given the limitations of such a study.