June Etta Downey

“ We are here brought face to face with the old question that has confronted all investigators of sex-differences. It is evident, however, that the question of the social environment is, in this instance, a controlling one not merely in the discussion of the revelation of sex in handwriting, but also in that of the revelation of intelligence; for there exists a peculiar environment for talent as well as for sex. ”

“ In any case it is evident that there is a psychology as well as a sociology of handwriting. Tremendously complicated as the problem of diagnosis of individual traits from those tiny strokes of the pen appears, it is yet a legitimate problem of science; for the more progress psychology makes, the more evident it becomes that there is not a mode of expression which is not rooted to its finest detail in the complex psycho-physical organism. ”

“ Other sociological aspects of handwriting might no doubt be investigated. The variation in individual chirography due to the nature of the letter written, be it of social import or a business note; the change in penmanship that comes with the change of the relation of the writer to the one addressed—all such observations, vague as they are at present, merit consideration. Most suggestive of all is the shift in style that comes when the writer addresses his own eye alone, yielding himself to the fervor of composition or the mental dissipation of being "off parade." ”

“ The revelations of the autograph as a mental photograph, a graphic representation of social relationships, have never been fully appreciated by the sociologist, although the world at large has always accepted a famous man's autograph as secondary in interest to his photograph alone. ”

“ The word mentally seen or heard, spoken or written, has been found to play an important part in the complex thought-processes that underlie the consciousness of meaning and the possibility of its expression. The question of significance here is how far one sort of verbal imagery is potent in initiating the written word of any individual and whether any difference in written gesture marks off the individual who habitually indulges himself in visual imagery from the man who is more motor in type or more dependent upon auditory images. ”

“ A highly interesting case of pathological writing is that known as automatic writing, writing of which the writer is either not conscious at all or else conscious only of the movement and its result without feeling in any way responsible for the act. In connection with such automatic writing one would like to have not only an analysis of the mental state, but also detailed information of the variation from the normal in terms of speed, amplitude, alignment and pressure of writing. ”

“ Indeed, it appears that the investigation of handwriting must be sociopsychological in nature. Unconscious imitation, social suggestibility doubtless play an important, if not all-important, part in determining writing characteristics. On the whole, therefore, it is not surprising that the experts were more successful in distinguishing marked differences in intelligence than in determining the nature of the individual superiority. ”

“ Each investigation as it progresses will be found to encroach upon the other. From the two will come the future science of handwriting. A résumé of the work that has already been done has perhaps its value at the present time.
First of all it may be profitable to consider the investigations that have sought to determine under scientific control whether or not the graphologists have made good their claims. It is to France that we owe, not only the most carefully wrought-out system of graphology, but also the most carefully thought-out control of that art. ”

“ At what point and to what extent in the process of learning to write does the visual-motor coordination fall under the ruling sense and what effect has such subordination upon the general appearance and character of the resulting chirography? One feels certain that the handwriting of the man visually inclined must differ ^om that of the man preoccupied with motor details, but is unable to specify the difference. Yet the problem does not remain insoluble, for there are simple methods of determining the part played by each sense in control of the writing of any individual. ”

“ Who does not number among his correspondents those whose final letters trail off into an indistinguishable scrawl; and others who end with a flourish that marks well the motor abandon? Characteristic revelations, no doubt, although interpretation as yet must be exceedingly diffident.
It is interesting to note in this connection the interpretation graphologists put upon the size of writing as indicative of individual traits. Distinction, power, frankness, honesty are held to reveal themselves by magnified writing either throughout writing as a whole or at the termination of words. ”

“ HANDWRITING, bearing as it does the cachet of individuality, has always interested those to whom things human make their intimate appeal. Curious observations relative to it have long been current, the existence, for instance, of national as well as family and personal chirographics ”

“ To be sure, the graphologists cite a tendency to elevate progressively the line of writing as an evidence of mental exaltation, of joy or ambition, while a fall in the alignment is indicative of the depressive emotions, self-distrust, sadness, melancholy. ”

“ An illustration of what may be expected from the perfecting of the technique of registration of speed, pressure and amplitude of writing is to be found in the report of a piece of work carried out some years ago in a German laboratory, where it was discovered that increased difficulty in mental work showed itself in written expression by increased pressure or by decrease in the size of the written characters. The former way of meeting the difficulty seemed to be characteristic of men ”

“ Variation in the amplitude of written characters involves doubtless many important considerations relative to the facilitation and inhibition of movement. Writing with attention preoccupied or distracted results variously in the enlargement or dwarfing of characters, an alternative result that seems to depend upon deep-seated tendencies of the individual. If, as facts apparently show, the individual who is the more automatic in his activities responds to distraction with an increase in the size of characters used ”

“ A further control of these experiments, an attempt to diminish the masking effect of class-imitativeness, might be achieved by international work, by tests involving the discovery of similar graphic signs in the writing of individuals separated by race and training. A repetition of Binet's test as to the possibility of distinguishing sex-differences might be of value in this country where sex-segregation in education is much less pronounced than it is in France. ”

“ In an investigation covering many months, Alfred Binet, the director of the psychological laboratory at the Sorbonne, planned and executed a series of carefully controlled experiments designed to test the ability of the graphologists to determine from handwriting the sex, the age, the intelligence and the character of the writer. ”

“ Nor will a scientific interpretation of individual chirography come merely to gratify an idle curiosity or a secret malice. It will be of immense value. All the arts remedial and educative will have need of it. Physician and educator, criminologist and sociologist, will make their appeal to it. ”

“ Whatever more extended observations may show, the writer of this paper has found it a very simple matter to pick out individuals who will make good subjects for muscle-reading—an experiment that succeeds best with those whose movements are most automatic—by a preliminary test in which the subject, blindfolded, is required to write his name rapidly in sequence while counting aloud by a given interval, say by 13's. ”