Kane

• Speech and language: The frontal lobe controls speech and language production, damage to this area of the brain often leaves the person with a slowed speech production rate.
• Impairment of Motor Function: This often leaves the sufferer with, and I quote directly from Brain-BehaviourOptimization.com: "a slow or shuffling Gait and stopped posture."
• Lack of self/situational awareness. "Disturbances of impaired self-awareness are also common after traumatic brain injury. The orbitofrontal areas of the frontal lobe are responsible for monitoring the individual's intrapersonal world. In an examination of patients with CT/MRI confirmed focal frontal lesions, Leduc, Herron, Greenberg, Eslinger and Grattan (1999) found deficits in social self-awareness (measured with a validated scale) in patients with orbital frontal damage."
• Lack of impulse control.
• Disinhibition.
• Self-Centeredness and/or Egocentric.
• Childishness and immature comments and actions.
• Inappropriate Humour/Tactless.
• Anti-Social Behaviour/Non consideration for consequences of own actions.

As Dr Stephen Igou, Founder & Creator of BrainInjury.Org, put it: The frontal lobes of the brain make us more human and less animal. When injury occurs, the balance between intellectual and animal propensity is destroyed.

 It's been claimed that someone with 'Brain Damage' simply couldn't create complex Ciphers, avoid slipping up etc etc but that's a totally unjustified claim because with frontal lobe injury/damage, many aspects of the self are effected like speech, motor function, short term memory, lacks ability to empathise and a range of other changes but one thing that frontal damage does not impact upon is the persons IQ or level of intellectual function. Now that is not me picking and choosing to decide this because it suits my agenda here, it's medically recognised as factual. The person's intelligence, their IQ,  is no different post frontal lobe damage to what it was functioning at prior to damage occurring. 

And many other symptoms I won't go over here now. But the lack of self awareness is something I was writing about earlier in this very thread saying I simply cannot accept that Zodiac's irrational response and actions at Presidio Heights are something he's aware of and is wilfully responding to the situation in this lackadaisical manner, totally uninterested or appearing unconcerned that he's at the Cab with a corpse and yet takes time to wipe the interior down and then exit, then wipe the exterior before shuffling off down Cherry and totally ignoring the entrance to Presidio at the top of Cherry that any consciously aware and normal killer would likely take because it significantly lessens the chances of being seen and/or detained. This shows both a lack of self awareness, and the poor risk assessment.

And Fouke did comment that of all the photographs of suspects he'd been shown or asked to view, Kane was and is the best likeness to the white guy he saw on Jackson.

Aug 12, 2014 13:25:57 GMT -8 MikeR said:

Hi-

How far does a lack of "situational awareness" go? When "Kane as Zodiac" saw the cops he sure tried to get away. And after that he didn't exactly put himself in any threat of being caught, since he watched the search from some safe place. Why didn't he just wander aimlessly around the search area?

Mike

Well here's an expert's explanation:

 Behavior and Frontal lobe impairment. Excerpts from The Executive Brain.

 Excerpts by Michael Cohen, Dir. of Education, Center for Brain Training. , Elkhonon Goldberg, PhD*

Overall, when there are problems in the PFC the organization of daily life becomes difficult and internal supervision goes awry. People with PFC problems often do things they later regret, exhibiting problems with impulse control. They also experience problems with attention span, distractibility, procrastination, poor judgment and problems expressing themselves.

 Test anxiety along with social anxiety also may be hallmarks of problems in the PFC. Situations that require concentration, impulse control and quick reactions are often hampered by PFC problems. Tests require concentration and the retrieval of information. Many people with PFC problems experience difficulties in test situations because they have trouble activating this part of the brain under stress, even if they have adequately prepared for the test. In a similar way, social situations require concentration, impulse control and dealing with uncertainty. Pfc deactivation often cause a person's mind to "go blank" in conversation which lead to being uncomfortable in social

And Medscape offers insight into Neuropsychiatric Sequelae of a Traumatic Brain Injury:

Executive function involving the frontal lobe-basal ganglionic-thalamic circuits is responsible for establishing goals, planning, initiating, sequencing, and inhibiting responses.[27] Frontal lobe injuries impair executive function, conceptual reasoning, and decision making. Patients with frontal lobe damage have difficulty with self monitoring and regulation. These deficits may significantly interfere with a patient's ability to cooperate with any type of psychotherapy or behavioral therapy.

 Reading several different sites and professional opinions it seems that Cognitive Dysfunction, or Brain Fog, plays an overwhelming role in situational or social unawareness. Visual Cues are needed in situations for a person to react to or realize the type of action needed to appropriately respond with. I suppose, and this is my own personal view and example to use, its like a man coming across a home that is on fire and the man simply watching with no concept of the possibility of lives at risk until a visual cue, such as a occupant smashing out a window from inside and yelling 'HELP ME' is given to the Brain Injured Citizen. 

 You and I would automatically wonder and have concern for the home to have people inside it but to a person suffering Frontal Lobe Impairment, he just see's a building on fire and need's an active cue to connect a home on fire with possibility of occupants who reside there being inside.

And just as a side note to offer evidence to support my earlier claim that intellectual IQ level is not diminished by Frontal Lobe Brain Injury, here's what the Neurologist for the Centre for Neuro Skills writes:

 "Disturbance of motor function is typically characterized by loss of fine movements and strength of the arms, hands and fingers (Kuypers, 1981). Complex chains of motor movement also seem to be controlled by the frontal lobes (Leonard et al., 1988). Patients with frontal lobe damage exhibit little spontaneous facial expression, which points to the role of the frontal lobes in facial expression (Kolb & Milner, 1981). Broca's Aphasia, or difficulty in speaking, has been associated with frontal damage by Brown (1972).

An interesting phenomenon of frontal lobe damage is the insignificant effect it can have on traditional IQ testing. Researchers believe that this may have to do with IQ tests typically assessing convergent rather than divergent thinking. Frontal lobe damage seems to have an impact on divergent thinking, or flexibility and problem solving ability. There is also evidence showing lingering interference with attention and memory even after good recovery from a TBI (Stuss et al., 1985)."

PS: My reasons for adding this as proof that IQ and intelligence is not effected or reduced by Injury to the frontal area of the Brain is Tom V's previous professional medial diagnosis that Kane could not have been Zodiac because he couldn't have had the mental capacity to plan then execute Zodiac's known crimes. Although what high level of sophisticated planning Zodiac engaged in that Tom seems ti suggest is clearly evident I don't have a clue of. How much intellectual pre-planning and high level decision making goes into a man driving dark lanes until happening upon a car in a turn in gated area is not something I can really see the logic and likelihood for.

 Quite how a clearly opportunistic killer like Zodiac is turned into a murderous expert planning machine is again something only Thomas can answer. Same with stopping a cab and directing him to a specific point before shooting him, how much planning does one need in order to put your arm out to flag down a cabbie?