Abstract
In a prior study (Lovelace & Aikens, 1990), young and old adults wrote 10 common words with their eyes open and again with their eyes closed. The present study used writing samples from 20 old and 20 young writers (67–85 years vs. 18–24 years) in the prior study. Thirty college students judged (1) which were written with eyes closed (paired comparisons, same word written by same person) and (2) whether the writer was young or old. Both tasks were difficult; performance was significantly above chance, but not good (71% correct on open/closed, 65% on young/old, both ps <.001). Accuracy of open/closed decisions was no higher when judging old writers than young writers, implying that the motor skill of handwriting is well preserved in aged individuals; they do not have an increased need of visual feedback to write. Judges also reported cues they had used to make these decisions. Accuracy of age decisions was significantly related to the reported use of style cues (73%correct for subjects reporting they used that cue vs. 53% when not reported, chance = 50%).
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Lovelace, E.A., Vella, B.A. & Anderson, D.M. Judging age from handwriting done with and without visual feedback. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 31, 111–113 (1993). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03334154
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03334154