Madam Lichtenstein's Cosmic World

Analyzing Your Handwriting

Apparantly your handwriting - the way you form your letters, write yoru cursives and slant your text, reveals alot about your personality. The science of Handwriting Analysis is called Graphology and has been around since quill has been on paper.

 

Real Simple Magazine has a easy series of lessons to help you analyze your handwriting while How Stuff Works goes into all the great details of graphology's history and even its use in law enforcement (wow):

In the world of forensic analysis, which includes crime scene investigation, DNA testing, fiber analysis, fingerprint analysis, voice identification and narcotics analysis, to name just a few of the disciplines, handwriting analysis fits into the area of questioned documents. Questioned document examiners (QDEs) analyze documents for signs of alteration, forgery and, when sample documents are available, handwriting or typing comparisons to determine or rule out authorship (and/or tie a document to a specific machine in the case of typing). Handwriting analysis is a tedious and methodical process that relies on extensive knowledge of the way people form letters, which characteristics of letter formation are unique and the physiological processes behind writing - the ways in which a person's fine-motor skills can affect his or her handwriting and leave clues about the author's identity.

I find handwriting analysis fascinating. In fact I know of one executive recruiter firm that uses graphology to judge whether someone is good for a certain job opening. Check out these books on handwriting analysis and see if you can fool the experts!

10 Things His Handwriting Can Tell You About Him

Want to share this interesting and useful article on Graphology from Best Dating Sites, reprinted here with permission.

Handwriting analysis, also known as graphology, is a field of study which associates a person’s writing style with certain psychological profiles. Though it is not an exact science, there are often some revealing personality traits that lie within the written word. Let’s take a look at 10 things that you can learn about someone from their handwriting:

1. Size Matters – Large, robustly written letters suggest a similarly big, outgoing personality. Smaller letters, on the other hand, indicate shyness; while an average size implies a more balanced personality.
2. Open or Closed – The loops in his writing, as in the cursive letter ‘L’, indicate tension when closed; spontaneity when they are fully open.
3. Slanted View – If his writing slants to the left, this could mean he’s more of a loner or a rebel; conversely, a right-slanting writing style says he is affable and more sociable. No slant tells you that he is all business and tends to be driven more by logic than by feelings.
4. Under Pressure – The pressure applied to paper when writing is another indicator: light pressure translates to a highly sensitive, empathic individual. Heavy pressure means seriousness, commitment, and even being somewhat uptight if the writing demonstrates very heavy pressure.
5. Above the Line – Upper zone letters – l, t, h, etc. – that are very tall show aspiration and imagination. Wide loops may imply a dreamer.
6. Below the Line – Lower zone letters – g, y, p, etc. – tell us things as well. A tight loop could be a sign of impatience; varied loops and pressure might be harbingers of an unsettled personality.
7. Spacing – When letters are spaced widely, you are most likely dealing with someone who needs their space, whereas tighter spacing suggests intimacy and a willingness to be close.
8. Left Margins – The spacing between the edges of the page and the text is just as revealing as the handwriting style. A wide left margin says “I’m open”, while a narrow one tells you to back off.
9. Right Margin – If the handwriting stops well before the end of the page line (wide right margin), the person is apprehensive. A narrow right margin implies impatience.
10. And If He Doesn’t Write – He’s just not that into you.

You can learn a lot about your main man’s personality by evaluating his writing style. So if his personality is in question, just take a look at the way that he writes, you may learn quite a bit more about him or verify traits you already suspected.

Graphology News: Handwriting clue to heart disease

File this under "Something to Keep in Mind". A graphologist is conducting a study to find out whether handwriting can reveal the early signs of heart disease.

Graphologist Christina Strang compared handwriting samples of 61 cardiac patients in Englan with those of healthy people and found statistical differences in the two groups. Ms Strang says that when writing we rest the pen for milliseconds and these so-called "resting dots" could show possible heart malfunctions. Her research showed twice as many "resting dots" among the cardiac group.

Strang is following in the work of Professor Alfred Kanfer who was a handwriting consultant in the Austrian government in the early 1900s. A concentration camp survivor, Kanfer worked with the American Cancer Society in the 1950s exploring the possible early detection of malignant diseases through the analysis of handwriting.

Graphology, the study of handwriting, can reveal all sorts of interesting information about a person. Try your "hand" at it:

Handwriting and the Election: What Graphology Says About the Candidates

I just saw this interesting analysis on Yahoo. Virginie Monte says that, through her handwriting, Hillary Clinton is smart and forceful, John McCain is proud but has a volatile temper, and Barack Obama is a diplomat who deals well with different people and situations.

"Handwriting is a reflection of the inner personality. It shows a person's ego strength, how good they feel about themselves, their intellectual, communication and working styles," graphologist Sheila Lowe.

Graphology – the study of one’s handwriting, is very popular in sophisticated markets such as France where recruiters often ask for a handwriting analysis as part of the job consideration process.

In the U.S. handwriting analysis has it waves of interst. Consider the election cycle. "Each time there are elections, I get invited to TV shows, radio shows," Lowe said. "There is always somebody who wants to know something, even if they don't take graphology seriously." Just the signatures of the candidates are revelatory -- at least to the eye of an expert.

Republican John McCain's signature shows a proud, idealistic but impulsive, if not uncontrollable man, according to the experts. New York graphologist Roger Rubin agreed, and also saw a powerful ego at play in the senator from Arizona because of the unevenness of McCain’s signature. "The capital J is the largest letter, which shows his strong belief in his own ego. The size of 'John' overwhelms the size of 'McCain' -- this shows how distant he is from his family roots."

Obama's signature reveals similar traits. The vertical straight line of the B in Obama cuts through the large O -- which is nonetheless smaller than the B in Barack. "The very large B shows he also has a very strong sense of his own ego," Rubin said. "And he is crossing out his family name," he added, recalling that Obama's father left the family when the front-runner for the Democratic nomination was just a young boy.

Yet another graphologist had a different interpretation of the bisected O: "He draws that circle and a line through it, and it's really like he has two different worlds," said Paula Sassi. "I think it shows his black and white heritage." The fluidity of Obama's signature is a sign of high intelligence, while its illegibility shows he is protecting his privacy. The large letters in Obama's signature show that he is ambitious, self-confident and views himself as a leader.

Clinton's legible, balanced signature shows a woman of great intelligence. It's simplicity portrays a "what-you-see-is-what-you-get" personality, said Lowe. Her straight-up-and-down writing indicates that she "thinks with her head, not with her heart," said Sassi. "But there is enough roundness in her writing to show that she cares about people," said Imberman. The fact that the second leg of the H and the second L in Hillary are higher than the first show ambition.

It is difficult, the experts say, to tell the sex of a person from their handwriting, or to discern if they are left- or right-handed. But, interestingly enough, Obama and McCain are lefties -- just like four out of five US presidents immediately before them: Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George Bush Sr and Bill Clinton.

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Learn more:
Handwriting Analysis: Putting It to Work for You
Sex, Lies, and Handwriting: A Top Expert Reveals the Secrets Hidden in Your Handwriting

Visualization Challenge

This link is to Science Magazine's 2006  Visualization Challenge winners. These winners are photographers who create such unusual photos such as a portrait of a cockroach (surprisingly beautiful) and flight patterns.

My favorite is a "landscape" of a letter E which started out as an effort to aid handwriting analysts.

According to independent media artist Curtis DuBois, "every individual has a characteristic way of using pressure in their writing," resulting in a unique pattern of pressure points. He used a 3D ray-tracing program to convert the shades of gray in a digitally scanned image of the handwritten letter "e" into variations in virtual altitude. By turning the darker spots into deeper areas in the image, DuBois was able to highlight the "hot spots" or pressure points and thus increase the amount of information available in the writing. He then added color and "atmospheric effects" for "aesthetic impact" of the image.

Who would like to "read" this photo and tell me what the E means?