sensitiveness

Sensitiveness is the quality or condition of being sensitive, or of responding to small changes in stimuli. It can describe how readily a system, instrument, or organism detects or reacts to variations in its environment, as well as how emotionally or socially responsive a person may be. The term is closely related to sensitivity, but in some contexts sensitiveness emphasizes perceptual or affective responsiveness rather than physical measurable response.

Etymology and usage vary by region and era. Sensitiveness derives from the Latin sensus (sense) and the English suffix -ness. In modern English, sensitivity is more commonly used in technical, scientific, and everyday writing, while sensitiveness appears more often in older texts or in certain varieties of English to stress tenderness or vulnerability.

In science and engineering, sensitivity (and by extension sensitiveness) designates how effectively a device or measurement responds to input. In instrumentation, sensor sensitivity is the ratio of output signal change to input quantity change, and it is a key characteristic alongside noise, linearity, and the limit of detection. Sensitiveness can also describe the responsiveness of a chemical or biological assay to low concentrations, or the degree to which a detector can distinguish small differences.

In psychology and everyday speech, sensitiveness often refers to heightened emotional reactivity or perceptual awareness. A person may be described as sensitiveness to criticism or to sensory stimuli, which can be experienced as empathy and perceptiveness, or as hypersensitivity and vulnerability depending on context.

See also sensitivity, hypersensitivity, and sensor sensitivity.