sensitivity

sensitivity
    n 1: (physiology) responsiveness to external stimuli; the
         faculty of sensation; "sensitivity to pain" [syn:
         {sensitivity}, {sensitiveness}, {sensibility}]
    2: the ability to respond to physical stimuli or to register
       small physical amounts or differences; "a galvanometer of
       extreme sensitivity"; "the sensitiveness of Mimosa leaves
       does not depend on a change of growth" [syn: {sensitivity},
       {sensitiveness}]
    3: sensitivity to emotional feelings (of self and others) [syn:
       {sensitivity}, {sensitiveness}]
    4: susceptibility to a pathogen [syn: {sensitivity},
       {predisposition}]
    5: the ability to respond to affective changes in your
       interpersonal environment [syn: {sensitivity},
       {sensitiveness}] [ant: {insensitiveness}, {insensitivity}]
    

Sensitivity \Sen`si*tiv"i*ty\, n.
   The quality or state of being sensitive; -- used chiefly in
   science and the arts; as, the sensitivity of iodized silver.
   [1913 Webster]

         Sensitivity and emotivity have also been used as the
         scientific term for the capacity of feeling. --Hickok.
   [1913 Webster]
    

120 Moby Thesaurus words for "sensitivity":
      acuteness, affectivity, agitability, allergy, anaphylaxis,
      appreciation, appreciation of differences, appreciativeness,
      artistic judgment, awareness, censoriousness, choosiness,
      combustibility, compassion, concern, connoisseurship,
      conscientiousness, consciousness, considerateness,
      critical niceness, criticalness, delicacy, discriminating taste,
      discriminatingness, discrimination, discriminativeness, edginess,
      emotional instability, emotionalism, empathy, eruptiveness,
      excitability, excitableness, explosiveness, exquisiteness,
      fastidiousness, feel, feeling, fine palate, fineness, finesse,
      hyperesthesia, hyperpathia, hypersensitiveness, hypersensitivity,
      identification, impressionability, inflammability, intuition,
      irascibility, irritability, judiciousness, kindliness,
      latent violence, making distinctions, meticulousness, nervousness,
      niceness of distinction, nicety, oversensibility,
      oversensitiveness, oversensitivity, overtenderness, palate,
      particularity, particularness, passibility, perception,
      perceptiveness, perceptivity, perfectionism, perturbability,
      photophobia, preciseness, precisianism, precision, prickliness,
      priggishness, prudishness, punctilio, punctiliousness, purism,
      puritanism, receptiveness, receptivity, refined discrimination,
      refined palate, refinement, responsiveness, scrupulosity,
      scrupulousness, selectiveness, selectivity, sense, sensibility,
      sensitiveness, sensitivity, sensitization, skittishness, soreness,
      startlishness, strictness, subtlety, supersensitivity,
      susceptibility, susceptivity, sympathy, tact, tactfulness, taste,
      temperamentalness, tempestuousness, tenderness, tetchiness,
      thin skin, ticklishness, touchiness, understanding, violence,
      warmth