CCNS - Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience

Dr. Blechert is a clinical and health psychologist at the Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience and the Department of Psychology in Salzburg, Austria. He studies emotional eating and dieting in peoples' lives using smart phones and questionnaires. He also investigates the underlying neural systems in the laboratory to determine which self-regulatory mechanisms might help people in making healthier food choices. Using these tools he and his team also try to understand the psychopathology of eating disorders like Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa.

Dr. Blechert received his Ph. D. from the University Basel. After post-doctoral research in Freiburg, Stanford, and Salzburg he assumed an Assistant Professorship at Salzburg University in October 2011. He completed his habilitation in Psychology in November 2013 and is currently employed as Full Professor.

Publications

2025

Shaping food choices with actions and inactions with and without reward and punishment: Huaiyu Liu, Julian Quandt, Lei Zhang, Xiongbing Kang, Jens Blechert, Tjits van Lent, Rob W. Holland, Harm Veling; Appetite

Bidirectional associations between affect and food craving within and between individuals: A mega-analysis: Matthias Burkard Aulbach, Christoph Bamberg, Julia Reichenberger, Ann-Kathrin Arend, Jens Blechert; Appetite

Taming “hanger” and falling prey to boredom-emotional and stress-eating in 801 healthy individuals using ecological momentary assessment: Matthias Burkard Aulbach, Christoph Bamberg, Julia Reichenberger, Ann-Kathrin Arend, Jens Blechert; Appetite

Contextual and affective precursors of physical activity intention and enactment examined through ecological momentary assessment: David Haag, Jan David Smeddinck, Anna Vogelsang, Jens Blechert; Psychology of Sport and Exercise

Feature Selection for Physical Activity Prediction Using Ecological Momentary Assessments to Personalize Intervention Timing: Longitudinal Observational Study: Devender Kumar, David Haag, Jens Blechert, Josef Niebauer, Jan David Smeddinck; JMIR mHealth and uHealth

The only constant is change: Stable vs. variable aspects of food approach bias relate differently to food craving and intake: Hannah van Alebeek, Mareike Röttger, Sercan Kahveci, Jens Blechert, Matthias Burkard Aulbach; Appetite

2024

The dual-feature approach-avoidance task: validity, training efficacy, and the role of contingency awareness in changing food preference: Sercan Kahveci, Hannah van Alebeek, Jens Blechert; Cognition and Emotion

Daily stress and emotions in relation to fear of negative and positive evaluation: Julia Reichenberger, Ann-Kathrin Arend, Jens Blechert; Journal of Anxiety Disorders

Emotional food craving across the eating disorder spectrum: an ecological momentary assessment study: Ann-Kathrin Arend, Jens Blechert, Takuya Yanagida, Ulrich Voderholzer, Julia Reichenberger; Eating and Weight Disorders - Studies on Anorexia, Bulimia and Obesity

Social impediments to meat-eaters’ adherence to critical calls for a meat-free diet: An experimental test of social norm and message source effects: J. Lukas Thürmer, Christoph Bamberg, Sean M. McCrea, Jens Blechert; Appetite

Why we don't eat as intended: Moderators of the short-term intention-behaviour relation in food intake: Matthias Burkard Aulbach, Hannah van Alebeek, Christopher M. Jones, Jens Blechert; British Journal of Health Psychology

Explaining post-traumatic stress symptoms and sleep disturbance in Ukrainian civilians: perceived threat versus objective war exposure: Anton Kurapov, Manuel Schabus, Sercan Kahveci, Frank H. Wilhelm, Jens Blechert; European Journal of Psychotraumatology

Imagine chocolate: The craving experience questionnaire in the food domain: Mareike Röttger, Hannah Van Alebeek, Matthias Burkard Aulbach, Jens Blechert; Appetite

How pre-processing decisions affect the reliability and validity of the approach-avoidance task: Evidence from simulations and multiverse analyses with six datasets: Sercan Kahveci, Mike Rinck, Hannah van Alebeek, Jens Blechert; Behavior Research Methods

Goal pursuit increases more after dietary success than after dietary failure: examining conflicting theories of self-regulation using ecological momentary assessment: Hannah van Alebeek, Christopher M. Jones, Julia Reichenberger, Björn Pannicke, Benjamin Schüz, Jens Blechert; International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity

A smartphone application to reduce problematic drinking: a feasibility trial: Christian Aljoscha Lukas, Jens Blechert, Matthias Berking; Pilot and Feasibility Studies

Excess after stress-A three-study validation of the salzburg stress drinking scale as a new tool to measure the stress-drinking relationship: Julia Reichenberger, Hannah van Alebeek, Thomas Messer, Jens Blechert; Stress and Health

2023

Emotional food‐cue‐reactivity in anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa: An electroencephalography study: Katharina Naomi Eichin, Claudio Georgii, Rebekka Schnepper, Ulrich Voderholzer, Jens Blechert; International Journal of Eating Disorders

Emotional eating: elusive or evident? Integrating laboratory, psychometric and daily life measures: Rebekka Schnepper, Jens Blechert, Ann-Kathrin Arend, Takuya Yanagida, Julia Reichenberger; Eating and Weight Disorders - Studies on Anorexia, Bulimia and Obesity

Within-person association of volitional factors and physical activity: Insights from an ecological momentary assessment study: David Haag, Eleonora Carrozzo, Björn Pannicke, Josef Niebauer, Jens Blechert; Psychology of Sport and Exercise

Predicting food craving in everyday life through smartphone-derived sensor and usage data: Thomas Schneidergruber, Jens Blechert, Samuel Arzt, Björn Pannicke, Julia Reichenberger, Ann-Kathrin Arend, Simon W. Ginzinger; Frontiers in Digital Health

Conflict in a word-based approach-avoidance task is stronger with positive words: Johannes Klackl, Jens Blechert, Eva Jonas; Brain and Behavior

Testing the effectiveness of a mobile approach avoidance intervention and measuring approach biases in an ecological momentary assessment context: study protocol for a randomised-controlled trial: Matthias Burkard Aulbach, Hannah van Alebeek, Sercan Kahveci, Jens Blechert; BMJ Open

Touchscreen-based approach-avoidance responses to appetitive and threatening stimuli: Hannah Van Alebeek, Sercan Kahveci, Mike Rinck, Jens Blechert; Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry

Toward Individualized Prediction of Binge-Eating Episodes Based on Ecological Momentary Assessment Data: Item Development and Pilot Study in Patients With Bulimia Nervosa and Binge-Eating Disorder: Ann-Kathrin Arend, Tim Kaiser, Björn Pannicke, Julia Reichenberger, Silke Naab, Ulrich Voderholzer, Jens Blechert; JMIR Medical Informatics

Disentangling go/no-go from motivational orientation to foods: approaching is more than just responding: Hannah Van Alebeek, Harm Veling, Jens Blechert; Food Quality and Preference

Differential Orbitofrontal Cortex Responses to Chocolate Images While Performing an Approach–Avoidance Task in the MRI Environment: Anja Lender, Janina Wirtz, Martin Kronbichler, Sercan Kahveci, Simone Kühn, Jens Blechert; Nutrients

2022

Devaluation of NoGo stimuli is both robust and fragile: Huaiyu Liu, Rob W. Holland, Jens Blechert, Julian Quandt, Harm Veling; Cognition and Emotion

Emotional Eating after Manipulating Emotion Regulation: A Laboratory Study in Adolescents: Taaike Debeuf, Sandra Verbeken, Brenda Volkaert, Nathalie Michels, Jens Blechert, Caroline Braet; Behaviour Change

Reception of health messages: effects of stigmatization and forcefulness: Rebekka Schnepper, Jens Blechert, F Marijn Stok; Journal of Public Health

Clustering individuals' temporal patterns of affective states, hunger, and food craving by latent class vector-autoregression: Björn Pannicke, Jens Blechert, Julia Reichenberger, Tim Kaiser; International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity

Further support for the validity of the social appearance anxiety scale (SAAS) in a variety of German-speaking samples: Julia Reichenberger, Anne Kathrin Radix, Jens Blechert, Tanja Legenbauer; Eating and Weight Disorders - Studies on Anorexia, Bulimia and Obesity

Prone to food in bad mood: Emotion‐potentiated food‐cue reactivity in patients with binge‐eating disorder: Ann‐Kathrin Arend, Rebekka Schnepper, Annika Petra Christine Lutz, Katharina Naomi Eichin, Jens Blechert; International Journal of Eating Disorders

(Mouse cursor)-Tracking food decisions in binge eating disorder reveals preference for high-energy foods and a role of BMI: Katharina Naomi Eichin, Claudio Georgii, Ann-Kathrin Arend, Zoé Van Dyck, Jens Blechert; Appetite

I change my mind to get better: Process tracing-based microanalysis of food choice processes reveals differences between Anorexia Nervosa and bulimia nervosa during inpatient treatment: Claudio Georgii, Katharina Naomi Eichin, Anna Richard, Rebekka Schnepper, Silke Naab, Ulrich Voderholzer, Janet Treasure, Jens Blechert; Appetite

Jens Blechert

Publications

2025

2024

2023

2022