Editing Sensory processing sensitivity (section)

==Origin and development of the terms==
[[Elaine Aron]]'s book ''The Highly Sensitive Person'' was published in 1996.<ref name=SciAm20150504/> In 1997 Elaine and [[Arthur Aron]] formally identified<ref name=AronAronJPSP1997/> ''sensory processing sensitivity'' (SPS) as the defining trait of highly sensitive persons (HSPs).<ref name=Booth2015/> The popular terms ''hypersensitivity'' (not to be confused with the medical term [[hypersensitivity]]) or ''highly sensitive'' are popular synonyms for the scientific concept of SPS.<ref name=Boterberg2016/>  By way of definition, Aron and Aron (1997) wrote that ''sensory processing'' here refers not to the sense organs themselves, but to what occurs as [[Sensory nervous system|sensory information]] is transmitted to or processed in the brain.<ref name=AronAronJPSP1997/> They assert that the trait is not a disorder but an innate [[Instinct|survival strategy]] that has both advantages and disadvantages.<ref name=JournalJung2006/><ref name=201804AcevedoHSBrainVsDisorders/>

Elaine Aron's [[academic journal]] articles as well as [[self-help]] publications for the lay reader have focused on distinguishing high SPS from socially [[wiktionary:reticent|reticent]] behavior<ref name="SocialReputation1992"/> and disorders<ref name=201804AcevedoHSBrainVsDisorders/><ref name=AronReview2012/> with which high SPS can be confused;<ref name=AdultShyness2005/> overcoming the social unacceptability that can cause low [[self-esteem]];<ref name=AdultShyness2005/> and emphasizing the advantages of high SPS<ref name=RiouxDiffSusc2016/> to balance the disadvantages emphasized by others.<ref name=Liss2008/><ref name=AdultShyness2005/><ref name=VulnerPlastGenes2009/>

In 2015, journalist Elizabeth Bernstein wrote in ''[[The Wall Street Journal]]'' that HSPs were "having a moment," noting that several hundred research studies had been conducted on topics related to HSPs' high sensitivity. The First International Scientific Conference on High Sensitivity or Sensory Processing Sensitivity was held at the [[Vrije Universiteit Brussel]].<ref name=WSJ20150518/> By 2015, more than a million copies of ''The Highly Sensitive Person'' had been sold.<ref name=Telegraph20151012/>

=== Earlier research ===
Research pre-dating the Arons' coining of the term "high sensitivity" includes that of German medicine professor Wolfgang Klages, who argued in the 1970s that the phenomenon of sensitive and highly sensitive humans is "biologically anchored" and that the "[[Absolute threshold|stimulus threshold]] of the [[thalamus]]" is much lower in these persons.<ref name=Klages_1978/> As a result, said Klages, there is a higher permeability for incoming [[Action potential|signals]] from [[afferent nerve fiber]]s so that they pass "unfiltered" to the [[cerebral cortex]].<ref name=Klages_1978/>

The Arons (1997) recognized psychologist [[Albert Mehrabian]]'s (1976, 1980, 1991) concept of filtering the "irrelevant", but wrote that the concept implied that the inability of HSPs' (Mehrabian's "low screeners") to filter out what is irrelevant would imply that what is relevant is determined from the perspective of non-HSPs ("high screeners").<ref name=AronAronJPSP1997/>