text: William Shakespeare may indeed have been the original author of the play Double Falsehood after all . A play discovered nearly 300 years ago and said to be a Shakespeare forgery was really written by the Bard himself, new research has revealed. The work titled Double Falsehood was presented by theatre impresario Lewis Theobald in the 18th century as an adaptation of a Shakespeare play about a Spanish nobleman's ignoble pursuit of two women. Theobald, a known scholar of Shakespeare, mounted his play at Drury Lane Theatre in London on December 13, 1727, claiming that it was a re-working of an original by the Bard and that he had three original texts. His claims were greeted with widespread scepticism in the eighteenth century, including from the great poet Alexander Pope, who had considerable clout. But a new study of its language to build up a psychological profile of the writer 'strongly identifies' the legendary playwright as the true author. Dr Ryan Boyd of the University of Texas said: 'Research in psychology has shown some of the core features of who a person is at their deepest level can be revealed based on how they use language. 'With our new study, we show you can actually take a lot of this information and put it all together at once to understand an author like Shakespeare rather deeply.' The study applied psychological theory and text analysing software and goes beyond confirming authorship by word counts and linguistic regularities. Mr Boyd explained: 'This research shows it is indeed possible to start modelling peoples' mental worlds in much more complete ways. 'We do not need a time machine and a survey form to figure out what type of person Shakespeare was - we can determine that very accurately just based on how he wrote using methods that are objective and easy to do.' Results showed the author of Double Falsehood was likely to be sociable and fairly well educated, findings that do not fit with accounts of Theobald as rigid and abrasive. Theobald published Double Falsehood in 1728 and claimed it was based on three original Shakespeare manuscripts which have since been lost, presumably destroyed by a library fire. Yet the authorship of the play has been hotly contested ever since. To get to the bottom of the mystery 33 plays by the Bard, twelve by Theobald and nine by Shakespeare's collaborator John Fletcher, were examined in the study published in Psychological Science. Jacobean dramatist John Fletcher (left) most likely collaborated with Shakespeare on Double Falsehood (right), which was long thought not to have had anything to do with the Bard . Software evaluated 'function words' including pronouns, articles and prepositions and words belonging to various content categories such as emotions, family, sensory perception and religion. They also looked at 'categorical writing' which tends to be heavy on nouns, articles and prepositions and indicates an analytic or formal way of thinking. People who rate high on this are likely to be emotionally distant, applying problem solving approaches to everyday situations while those who rate low tend to live in the moment and are more focused on social matters. By aggregating dozens of psychological features of each playwright, the researchers were able to create a psychological signature for each individual and compare them with that of the writer of Double Falsehood. Every measure but one identified Shakespeare as the likely author with Theobald identified as the best match only when it came to his use of content words. But when the texts were analysed across individual acts, they found a more nuanced picture. The first three continued to point the finger at Shakespeare, but for the fourth and fifth the measures varied between him and Fletcher. Again, Theobald's influence appeared to be very minor. Boyd said: 'Honestly, I was surprised to see such a strong signal for Shakespeare showing through in the results. 'Going into the research without any real background knowledge, I had just kind of assumed it was going to be a pretty cut and dry case of a fake Shakespeare play, which would have been really interesting in and of itself.' Tangled relationships, women disguised as men, intrigue laced with tragedy and comedy - some might say Double Falsehood has all the hallmarks of Shakespeare. Set in the province of Andalusia in Spain, a love rat called Henriquez Angelo courts a beautiful peasant girl, Violante, and forces himself upon her when she rejects his advances. Stricken by a guilty conscience he nevertheless seduces Leonora, the future wife of his absent best friend Julio. She accepts Henriquez's marriage proposal against her will, because her father Don Bernardo wants a family connection with nobility. Leonora writes a letter to Julio who returns to interrupt the wedding, causing her to faint. Her father discovers a dagger and suicide note on her person, revealing her determination not to be forced into marriage. But for the best part of three centuries the play was dismissed as a falsehood in more than just title. That was until 2010 when Professor Brean Hammond, of the University of Nottingham, put forward his thesis that the play originates from a collaboration between Shakespeare and Jacobean dramatist John Fletcher. He claimed the versification was very similar to other works by Shakespeare and that Double Falsehood contained words never seen before and not previously used by Theobald. Dr Boyd's new study is the latest to support this revisionist view.
target: Double Falsehood was presented by Lewis Theobald in the 18th century .
  Theatre impresario made it out to be an adaptation of a play by the Bard .
  Claims met with scepticism, including from great poet Alexander Pope .
  But new study of its language identifies playwright as the true author .
  Psychological theory and text analysing software lead to conclusion of University of Texas study which claims to model Bard's 'mental world'