Sex determination from handwritten documents using conventional method
Abstract
Even in the era of digitalization appreciation of hand written documents stands as a major proof in cases of fraud or crime. Instances of disputes regarding property will, suicidal notes needs to identify the individual. Handwriting being the unique feature of an individual reflects the personality and state of mind. Efforts to determine the gender on the basis of handwriting help forensic experts minimizing the suspect pool to an appreciable extent. Many online and offline studies were conducted on handwriting analysis. Use of offline handwritten documents simplifies the task. With this thought several macro and micro-features were assessed from the written documents to find out the more significant ones in gender determination. This study was conducted on 150 medical students where 75 males and 75 females were included. A short paragraph including the entire English alphabet was chosen for this study. Out of all the macrofeatures considered in this study, difference in cursive and printed writting showed a significant gender difference. Among the microfeatures analysed, Small letter ‘r’ (parochial/arcade), flourish at the start of small letter ‘c’ and loop at the end of small letter ‘u’ were the three features exhibiting gender differences. Thus rejecting the null hypothesis, this study stands in favor with the statement 'Gender differentiation is possible from handwritten documents’.
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