The relationship of gastric motility to the experience of hunger has been investigated. In accord with traditional views a group of nonobese women usually reported hunger during contractions of the empty stomach, and no hunger in the absence of such contractions. A group of obese women, on the other hand, usually failed to report hunger during the presence of stomach contractions. This denial of hunger extended to a denial of sensations of epigastric emptiness and of the desire to eat, --fundamental characteristics of the hunger experience among nonobese women. That the denial of hunger was due to a specific difficulty in discrimination in the presence of gastric motility is suggested by the observation that there was no difference between obese and nonobese women in the distribution of hunger reports in the absence of gastric motility. Obese subjects manifesting the “nighteating syndrome” showed a significantly higher incidence of denials of hunger than did obese persons not manifesting this syndrome. The suggestion is made that denial of hunger occurs in persons with a conflict over eating who are simultaneously subjected to strong social pressures in this regard. Its function, according to this hypothesis, would be to exclude from awareness any stimuli that signal an approaching caloric deficit with its concomitant conflict over eating.