Many people have experience the feeling of their phones vibrating in their pockets but upon checking on their devices, they'll immediately realize that it was only their imagination, Wired reported.
Apparently, this is a very common sensation dubbed by many as the phantom vibrations.
Although some attribute it to minor hallucinations, clinical psychologist David Laramie explained that this sensation may be rooted to people's deep relationship with their mobile devices.
"Phantom vibrations are this unusual curiosity that speaks to our connection with our phones," he explained. "It's part of the modern landscape and our relationship with technology."
In Laramie's 2007 thesis about phantom vibrations, he rejected the notion of hallucination as a probable explanation because the sensation is triggered by something that is real.
"You're misinterpreting something, but there is this external cue," he said. "You're not totally making it up."
Instead of hallucination, Laramie explained it has something to do with pareidolia.
"That's the phenomenon where you see a face in the clouds or hear 'Paul is dead' when you listen to the Beattles backwards," he said.
Laramie also pointed out in his study that younger people are more prone to experience phantom vibrations than older mobile phone users. This is because the use of mobile devices is more ingrained in the lives of those from the younger generation.
Aside from a psychological point of view, phantom vibrations can also be explained through the physical or biological perspective.
According to Sliman Bensmaia, a neuroscientist from the University of Chicago, the human body's skin has two receptors that detect vibrations. The first, which is called Meissner's corpuscles, detect slow vibrations. The other one, the Pacinian corpuscles, sense high-frequency vibrations.
Most mobile phone models vibrate at a frequency between 130 to 180 hertz. At these levels, the vibrations are strong enough to activate the Pacinian corpuscles, Yahoo reported.
Bensmaia then explained that when clothes rub against the skin, they can vibrate at a frequency similar to that of a mobile phone. As the receptors detect the vibrations, they send signals to the brain which then interprets the sensation as a familiar feeling, one that is commonly produced by a vibrating phone.
"What happens, I think, is that because your clothers are rubbing against your skin, you cause activity in the same receptors, and that activity is just similar enough to the activity caused by a vibrating phone," he said.