The will-temperament and its testing / by June E. Downey.

  • June Downey
Date:
1923
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The will-temperament and its testing / by June E. Downey. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    firmed, but some of their ideas were in part found to be correct. Such possibility as there exists of reading character from handwriting is due to the appearance in hand¬ writing of the signs of the free release of the motor impulses that produce writing or the reverse. In other words, it is possible to identify in handwriting signs of motor explosiveness and motor inhibition. These signs were identified by the author through two distinct lines of experimentation: (1) The production of automatic writing; and (2) The determination of the characteristics of handwriting that is deliberately disguised. Samples of automatic writing were obtained for study by a long period of training in which the per¬ sons concerned learned how to write automatically a memorized verse while the attention was concentrated on reading a story aloud or silently.1 It was found that the automatic hand was a large, light, continuous hand slanted toward the right, with, frequently, super¬ fluous strokes or random movements. It gave evi¬ dence of hyperkinetic tendencies. When conditions were reversed and attention was definitely concentrated upon handwriting in the en¬ deavor to produce a disguised hand or one completely unlike one’s usual hand, very different characteristics appeared.2 A disguised hand shows evidences of Signs of motor explo¬ siveness and inhibition in handwriting Automatic writing an explosive- hand Disguised writing an inhibited hand 1 Downey and Anderson, “Automatic Writing.” American Jour- nal of Psychology, Vol. 26, 1915. 2 “Handwriting Disguise.” Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 1, 1917.
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