Why does our skin gets itchy when we make contact with something that’s shaking, like a bus seat or a massage chair?

Question

Why does our skin gets itchy when we make contact with something that’s shaking, like a bus seat or a massage chair?

In: Biology

Answer 1

Somewhat anecdotally, it’s been discovered that different frequencies can cause different phantom sensations in your skin. This is most frequently noted by people as the “phantom phone vibration”. That feeling that your phone is vibrating when it actually wasn’t.

The paper I remember reading about this years ago studied a lot of different frequencies and managed to isolate that rubbing something hard like a fingernail or coin across corduroy clothing can fairly consistently create the right frequency for the phone-vibration example. There might have been a bit about needing to be unaware it was about to happen though, I can’t remember that part.