Why People with FASD Fall for Manipulative Ploys: Ethical Limits of Interrogators’ Use of Lies

People with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) present challenges to those who work in the criminal legal system. Prenatal exposure to alcohol can cause physical, neurological, and psychological impairments. It is vital to understand the individual offender in order to address the underlying reasons for criminal behavior. Individuals with FASD often come from dysfunctional backgrounds, and may have mental illnesses and substance use disorders. A comprehensive medical-legal report, prepared by a professional experienced with FASD, can help judges and lawyers understand how complex the interactions are among brain damage, genetics, and the environment. The person with FASD can be misunderstood in court, victimized in jails, and mismanaged in the transition back to the community, unless those working with the individual are aware of FASD and its implications. Show more

The presence of confabulation following brain damage can obstruct neuropsychological rehabilitation and management. A recent theoretical approach to confabulation emphasises that neurocognitive deficits are not sufficient to account for the content of confabulation. As a result, they are also insufficient to address the unique rehabilitation challenges that confabulation raises. Instead, confabulation could be best understood as the magnification of existing reconstructive memory processes, influenced by both neurocognitive and motivational factors. The paper reviews recent experimental findings showing that confabulations serve important functions of self-coherence and self-enhancement, despite their poor correspondence to reality. Case material is used to illustrate the meaningfulness of confabulation from the subjective perspective of the patient and to demonstrate that such a theoretical approach to confabulation can best inform management and rehabilitation efforts. Show more