The relationship between handwritten signature production and personality traits

The capacity to link various aspects of a person´s identity is of value in the search for reliable means of authentication and identification. With the increase in digital living, this has taken on a new perspective through the need to link aspects of identity in the physical world to those in the digital world. The focus in this work is in the value of the signature as a token of identity in its own right but also as a method to reveal information about the person signing. Whilst existing methods for the analysis of an individual´s personality through their handwriting (graphology) have been discredited, we wish to revisit the issue with respect to signatures. Critically, we use accepted and modern static and dynamic features from the signature as potential indicators of personality. Our results suggest some clear links between signature production and relevant cues about the signer, especially when we incorporate dynamic elements of signature production. As such these results suggest there is renewed value in using a signature to reveal information about the signer.