Phantom vibration syndrome

Some call it “phantom vibration syndrome.” Others prefer “vibranxiety” – the feeling when you answer your vibrating cell phone, only to find it never vibrated at all.

“It started happening about three years ago, when I first got a cell phone,” says Canadian Steven Garrity, 28, of Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. “I’d be sitting on the couch and feel my phone start to vibrate, so I’d reach down and pull it out of my pocket. But the only thing ringing was my thigh.”

Though no known studies have analyzed what may cause spontaneous buzzing, anecdotes such as Garrity’s ring true with the public.

Spurred by curiosity, Garrity, a Web developer, described the recurring false alarms on his blog. The response was not imaginary: More than 30 cell phone users reported that they, too, experienced phantom vibrations.

“I ended up hearing from a lot of people who said, ‘Hey, the exact same thing happens to me,’ ” Garrity says. “And it was somewhat comforting, because it made me think I wasn’t insane, after all.”

Some who experienced recurring phantom vibrations wondered whether the phenomenon had physical roots: Was it caused by nerve damage or muscle memory?

But experts say the false alarms simply demonstrate how easily habits are developed.

Psychologically, the key to deciphering phantom vibrations is “hypothesis-guided search,” a theory that describes the selective monitoring of physical sensations, says Jeffrey Janata, director of the behavioral medicine program at University Hospitals in Cleveland. It suggests that when cell-phone users are alert to vibrations, they are likely to experience sporadic false alarms, he says.

“You come armed with this template that leads you to be attentive to sensations that represent a cell phone vibrating,” Janata says. “And it leads you to over-incorporate nonvibratory sensations and attribute them to the idea that you’re receiving a phone call.”

Alejandro Lleras, a sensation and perception professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, adds that learning to detect rings and vibrations is part of a perceptual learning process.

“When we learn to respond to a cell phone, we’re setting perceptual filters so that we can pick out that (ring or vibration), even under noisy conditions,” Lleras says. “As the filter is created, it is imperfect, and false alarms will occur. Random noise is interpreted as a real signal, when in fact, it isn’t.”

Phantom cell phone vibrations also can be explained by neuroplasticity – the brain’s ability to form new connections in response to changes in the environment.

When cell-phone users regularly experience sensations, such as vibrating, their brains become wired to those sensations, Janata says.

“Neurological connections that have been used or formed by the sensation of vibrating are easily activated,” he says. “They’re over-solidified, and similar sensations are incorporated into that template. They become a habit of the brain.”

Cell-phone company spokesmen, meanwhile, say they are not aware of any consumer complaints about phantom vibrations. Cell phones cannot sporadically vibrate on their own, says Mark Siegel of AT&T, formerly Cingular Wireless.

“Perhaps in the mind of the cell-phone user only,” he says.