Many of us have reached in our pockets, feeling a vibration, wrongly believing our mobile phones have just rung

Many of us have reached in our pockets, feeling a vibration, wrongly believing our mobile phones have just rung

The phenomenon even has a name: "phantom vibration syndrome" – and found it is surprisingly common

Now scientists believe that we are so alert for phone calls and messages we are misinterpreting slight muscle spasms as proof of a call

Robert Rosenberger, an assistant professor at the Georgia Tech Institute of Technology has studied the delusional calls

He said sufferers describe a vague tingling feeling which they think is their mobile phone indicating it has received a text message or call while on "silent"

Dr Rosenberger said "I find so many people say, 'This happens to me, but I thought I was the only one, I thought I was weird.'"

It seems that the syndrome particularly affects people at the beck and call of mobile phones or pagers

A 2010 study by Michael Rothberg and colleagues found that nearly 70 per cent of doctors at a hospital in Massachusetts suffered phantom vibrations

A more recent study of US college students found the figure was as high as 90 per cent

While the odd feeling is widespread, it does not seem to be considered a grave problem

Dr Rosenberger said: "It’s not actually a syndrome in a technical sense. That’s just the name that’s got stuck to it."

While widespread, the scientific community has not yet invested much effort in getting to the bottom of why we suffer phantom calls

Dr Rosenberger said: "People are guessing it has something to do with nervous energy."

"The cognitive scientists are talking about brain chemistry, cognitive pathways changing. But it’s not like they have brain scans to go on."

He said: "We have a phone call in our pocket all the time and it becomes sort of an extension of ourselves."

"We have this sort of readiness to experience a call. We feel something and we think, OK, that could be a call."