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tessneal.bsky.social
Tess Neal
@tessneal.bsky.social
6.7K followers 1.2K following 1.2K posts
Dean's Associate Prof. Scholar of Expertise. #OpenScience. Editor-in-Chief @Psychology, Public Policy & Law. #Fulbright. Views mine. https://psych-law.lab.asu.edu/
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tessneal.bsky.social
Fall 2025 photos of the Clinical and Legal Judgment Lab. We had fun with the beautiful leaves. Photos taken outside Lagomarcino Hall on the Iowa State University campus.

#CLJlab #Psychology #science #mentoring #law #LawPsych #PsychLaw
5 adults throwing leaves into the air in a field full of colorful fall leaves and trees with red and yellow leaves. 5 adults by a sign that says "Lagomarcino Hall" on the Iowa State University campus in front of a tree full of colorful fall leaves in red and yellow hues. 5 adults throwing leaves into the air in a field full of colorful fall leaves and trees with red and yellow leaves. 5 adults standing together and smiling in front of a tree with colorful leaves in hues of yellow and red.
October 31, 2025 at 6:40 PM
tessneal.bsky.social
I appreciated being part of the #NoKings rally in Ames, Iowa today with friends, family, and colleagues.
Photo of no kings rally in Ames Iowa (taken by Craig Pierson) Sign says Trump is bankrupting Iowa farmers. Photo by Craig Pierson Sign of an older woman with a shirt saying I am Aunt Tifaand carrying an NPR bag. Photo taken by Craig Pierson at Ames Iowa no kings rally. Marcher in Ames Iowa no kings rally with sign saying science saves lives
October 18, 2025 at 10:24 PM
tessneal.bsky.social
I'm looking forward to this. I'm working to it as educational and worthwhile for people as possible.

www.lectures.iastate.edu/event/insani...
"Insanity cases that shaped popular culture" ISU true crime lecture series. THis lecture by Tess Neal (a photo included), Tuesday Oct 7 @6pm. 2630 Memorial Union.
October 6, 2025 at 6:04 PM
tessneal.bsky.social
Excellent article. #psychlaw #lawpsych
Chart showing declining rates of civil cases decided by juries since the 1960s (down from about 6% in 1960s to less than 1% today).
September 5, 2025 at 4:23 PM
tessneal.bsky.social
Excited and grateful to be working with these two bright and passionate PhD students. We took this pic at our department’s annual welcome BBQ at a beautiful park. ♥️ #CLJlab
Three smiling people standing together in a green landscape
August 28, 2025 at 3:50 AM
tessneal.bsky.social
The authors also created a public website to explore impacts: scienceimpacts.org
Image of the U.S. with each county of all the 50 states in one of six shades of warm colors, representing a scale of how much grant funding has been cancelled in each county. The image is part of a public website with app available to explore impacts: https://scienceimpacts.org/
August 5, 2025 at 9:47 PM
tessneal.bsky.social
To a disquieting 250th birthday, America.
Two glasses of summer white sangria with fresh cold watermelon cubes, fresh pineapple pieces, thinly-sliced fresh lime over ice in front of a trifle dessert bowl with fresh strawberries, blueberries, layers of angel food cake, and white chocolate pudding mixed with whipped topping.
July 3, 2025 at 9:17 PM
tessneal.bsky.social
Old blue-painted doors with a padlock and painted sign that says “don’t forget to remember”
June 22, 2025 at 6:47 PM
tessneal.bsky.social
My first #SARMAC @sarmac2025.bsky.social in Kildare, Ireland was excellent. Thanks to the organizers, presenters, & hosts for a lovely experience! We learned some basic Hurley, heard new music (to us), drank Guinness in a snug bar, and caught up with friends from across the globe. So very grateful.
Two people on a Hurling pitch with hurleys and sliotar Three women with excited faces about to enjoy a “baby Guinness” shot after presenting Ralph McTell “streets of London” song from 1969 Outside of Killashee house hotel in Kildare, Ireland
June 14, 2025 at 11:40 PM
tessneal.bsky.social
Made Black Forest baseball cake for kid bday. So much work, but I think they turned out good! I hope they taste good.
Layering the inside of Black Forest cake: three layers of cake doused in cherry juice and lemon, with fresh whipped cream and sour cherries in a juice slurry between the layers. Finished baseball-decorated cakes.
June 7, 2025 at 3:36 PM
tessneal.bsky.social
May 20, 2025 at 5:31 PM
tessneal.bsky.social
Found on the bulletin board in the department hallway last week:
Flier says “watch/join me in eating a whole rotisserie chicken” with date, time, and creative details
May 13, 2025 at 6:38 PM
tessneal.bsky.social
First homemade pizza in our outdoor oven. Burrata and mozzarella, homemade tomato sauce with San Marzano tomatoes. 00 flour and high-quality olive oil. Undercooked accidentally but we will try again. Mmm.
First-ever pizza cooked in the outdoor pizza oven. Pizza oven with fire in a backyard.
May 13, 2025 at 1:48 AM
tessneal.bsky.social
Flowers in the yard are blooming 🌺 🌼
April 20, 2025 at 5:49 PM
tessneal.bsky.social
Also, this big owl
April 16, 2025 at 8:43 PM
tessneal.bsky.social
This tree on my campus is incredible
April 16, 2025 at 8:41 PM
tessneal.bsky.social
We are excited about our latest paper published in Nature Reviews Psychology:

Psychological Insights for Judging Expertise and Implications for Adversarial Legal Contexts

Read & share here: rdcu.be/edUCO

@jasonchin.bsky.social @berengut.bsky.social #Law #Psychology #Expertise #Expert #psychscisky
April 14, 2025 at 4:24 PM
tessneal.bsky.social
Thanks to Story County Courthouse and one of our local judges for letting part of my university’s forensic psychology class sit in and observe court today. Grateful for opportunities like these for our students and community.
Six undergraduate students and one professor standing in front of a lady justice statue in a county courthouse in Iowa. Photo of the front sign on the building of the Story County Courthouse in Iowa.
March 31, 2025 at 3:53 PM
tessneal.bsky.social
Our Clinical & Legal Judgment Lab photo, Spring 2025. So grateful to get to work with these wonderful people. They're smart, kind, driven, and fun. We laughed so hard at the end of our lab meeting this week that I walked out with laugh-tears streaming. #Grateful #Mentoring #Science #CLJlab
Photo of a group of scholars smiling. From left: Maya Irvin-Vitela, PhD student; Tavien Bragg, undergraduate student; Tess Neal, lab director; Marlee Curtis, undergraduate student; Indya Kenney, undergraduate student.
March 30, 2025 at 4:26 AM
tessneal.bsky.social
We have a paper recently that may be at least partially relevant: rdcu.be/edUCO
March 29, 2025 at 5:19 PM
tessneal.bsky.social
See for instance this week's poll. Of course everyone agrees with the principle here, but the framing is not good (not everyone supports EMusk or how it's going)...results to this poll won't be very informative.
Do you support eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer dollars? Yes, no, or unsure/indifferent
March 29, 2025 at 3:21 AM
tessneal.bsky.social
Also, this. I haven’t done this yet, but am going to add to my preprints.
“Protect your works” add a “no AI training” notice on the copyright page (and can block bots on website’s robots.txt file)
March 24, 2025 at 2:04 AM
tessneal.bsky.social
Read our latest #research on #psychology, just published in Nature Reviews Psychology.

Read & share here: rdcu.be/edUCO

@natrevpsych.bsky.social @springernature.com @jasonchin.bsky.social @berengut.bsky.social
Cover image of the March 2025 issue of Nature Human Psychology. Shows colorful dots connected to each other with lines, overlaid on human head profiles.
March 22, 2025 at 5:08 PM
tessneal.bsky.social
Maya Irvin-Vitela will be presenting this work in the Saturday 3/15 datablitz (5pm-6pm) in San Cristobol. This work is from Ciera Arnett's dissertation (Maya helped as a coder!). Interesting work & findings about psychosis, substance use, & insanity. #APLS2025 #Law #Psychology #PsychLaw #CLJLab
"The Legal Intersection of Psychosis and Substance Use: A Mixed-Methods Investigation of Settled Insanity" by Maya Irvin-Vitela, Ciera Arnett, & Tess Neal of the Clinical & Legal Judgment Lab. "The current study" slide that details the primary aims of the two studies comprising this work (case-law analysis of settled insanity cases in the U.S., and an experiment with 310 forensic mental health experts as participants). This work was preregistered and materials, data, and code are available on the OSF. Case Law Review results showing that coders with clinical science training found about 30% of the cases reviewed as having some viability for settled insanity defense from a clinical science viewpoint, contrasted with the actual legal outcome of these cases in which just one case (2% of the sample) actually had a successful settled insanity claim. Results from experiment with forensic mental health experts, showing that mental health experts generally saw settled insanity as redundant to traditional insanity. Findings across the two studies showed legal and mental health professionals agree that acute, voluntary substance intoxication at the time of a crime generally precludes the use of an insanity defense...but cases where substance use is more distal are more complicated.
March 13, 2025 at 9:10 PM
tessneal.bsky.social
Emily Line @emily-line.bsky.social will also be presenting results from her excellent master's thesis in this session (Friday 3/14 at 8am). She was awarded an #APLS2025 "Outstanding Student Presentation in Legal Research Award" for this paper at this conference. #PsychLaw #Law #Psychology
"Experts Screening Experts: Can Courts Effectively Gatekeep Psychological Assessment Evidence?" by Emily Line, M.S., Tess Neal, PhD, and Elizabeth Mathers, M.S. Study summaries of 3 studies, showing demographic information about the 229 attorneys who participated in the experiment and survey for study 1, the 44 judges who participated in the experiment and survey for study 2, and the 265 forensic psychologists who participated in the survey for study 3. All studies were preregistered on the OSF; all materials, deidentified data, and analysis scripts are available on the OSF Experimental results from the attorney (study 1) and judge (study 2) samples, showing that both attorneys and judges have some capacity to discriminate between higher and lower quality psychological assessment evidence Survey data of results from all three samples showing most attorneys, judges, and forensic mental health experts have not experienced legal challenges to psychological assessment evidence in the real world.
March 13, 2025 at 8:39 PM