A study of various factors influencing handwriting

Handwriting of an individual is the result of his physiological, psychological and environmental life and it is considered to be most complex and probably most revealing feature. Each person has a distinct mental conception of style and manner of writing which produces certain characteristic features that identify and clearly differentiate his writing from all others.Variations in the writings occur due to physical and mental conditions. However, when there is marked decline in the nervo-muscular coordination of an individual due to old age or severe ailments, the affected writings reveal considerable variations in the appearance and other writing features, causing difficulties to form an opinion regarding their authorship. The present work has been undertaken to study the influence of various factors such as change of writing instrument, old age, illness, visual impairment, writing posture, etc. on handwriting. The copied writings have also been examined and compared with the affected writings to find out the parameters on the basis of which the signs of forgery can be differentiated from the natural variation occurring due to external and internal conditions.