In a study by Hinchcliffe, Lancashire and Roberts (1971), results of verbal behaviour analysis are described which purport to show objective, quantified evidence of ‘psychological defence mechanisms' in the speech of depressed patients. The method employed was based on earlier work by Weintraub and Aronson (1962, 1964), involving the tape-recording of speech during interviews of both patients and controls. Analysis is made of both temporo-physical events (e.g. speech rate; pausing) and lexical and semantic content. Regarding the latter, particular emphasis was placed on frequency of ‘negators', defined as ‘not, never, nor, nothing’ (Hinchcliffe et al., 1971) and ‘All negatives, e.g. “not“, “no”, “nothing“, “never”.’ (Weintraub and Aronson, 1964). Such ‘negators' are taken to indicate ‘denial’ in the psycho-analytic sense. Hinchcliffe et al. used a group of ten depressed in-patients and a control group of ten surgical in-patients ‘matched for age, sex and socio-economic position’, but sharply demarcated in terms of their scores on the Zung Self-Rating Scale for depression (Zung, 1965). They found a preponderance of ‘negators' in the speech of the depressed group which was statistically highly significant (P < 0·005), comparing well with the findings of Weintraub and Aronson (P < 0 · 01). In a subsequent communication (Silverman, 1971), the present author expressed doubt as to the validity of the inference that ‘negators' do indicate ‘denial’ in depressed patients, and suggested an alternative experiment of which this is a report.