Editing Sensory processing sensitivity (section)

=== 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/>