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Throughout my young adulthood, I spotted my grandmother through the glass of a coffee house. I felt stunned – she had passed away the previous year. I looked intently for a short time, then recalled it was impossible to be her.

I'd experienced analogous experiences during my life. Periodically, I "identified" an individual I was unacquainted with. At times I could rapidly identify who the unknown individual resembled – for instance my grandmother. Other times, a face simply had a indistinct knowingness I couldn't place.

Examining the Spectrum of Facial Recognition Abilities

Lately, I began questioning if different individuals have these odd experiences. When I inquired my companions, one mentioned she often sees persons in random places who look known. Others occasionally confuse a stranger or famous person for someone they know in real life. But some reported no such experiences – they could effortlessly recognize people they'd met and people they hadn't.

I felt curious by this diversity of perceptions. Was it just desire that made me see my grandmother that day – or some kind of brain malfunction? Studies has found we spend about a quarter-hour of every hour looking at faces – do we just make mistakes sometimes? I was starting to understand that we can all see the same face but not perceive the same thing.

Understanding the Range of Person Recognition Abilities

Investigators have developed many evaluations to assess the capacity to recognize faces. There exists a broad spectrum: at one end are super-recognizers, who recognize faces they have seen only momentarily or a distant past; at the other are people with prosopagnosia, who often find it challenging to know family, intimate companions and even themselves.

Some assessments also assess how proficient someone is at recognizing if they have not seen a face before. This is where I think I am deficient. But experts "just haven't dug into this" as much as they've looked at the skill to recognize a face, according to brain researchers. It does seem that the two skills use separate brain processes; for instance, there is indication that super-recognizers and face-blind individuals do about as well as each other at identifying new faces, despite their wildly different abilities to remember old faces.

Taking Facial Recognition Tests

I felt interested whether these evaluations would offer understanding on why unknown people look familiar. Was I someone who never forgets a face? I often recall people more than they recall me, and feel disheartened – a emotion that scientists say is typical for exceptional facial identifiers. But maybe I excessively identify faces – to the extent that even some new faces look recognizable.

I was sent several face identification tests. I waded through them, feeling puzzled at times. In one, called the Cambridge Face Memory Test, I had to look at black-and-white photos of a face from three angles, then find it in lineups. During another test that directed me to pick out famous people from a mix of photos, many of the faces felt at least known, but I couldn't precisely recognize them – similar to my everyday experience.

I felt doubtful about my outcome. But after analysis of my performance, I had accurately recognized 96% of the celebrity faces. The determination was that I qualified as a "almost superior face rememberer".

Understanding Incorrect Identification Percentages

I also did exceptionally in the known/unknown countenances task, which was described as particularly good for measuring someone's recognition for faces. The participant looks at a sequence of 60 monochrome photos, each of a distinct face. Then they examine a sequence of 120 similar photos – the initial collection plus 60 unknown visages – and indicate which were in the initial group. The exceptional facial identifier benchmark is roughly 80%; I recognized 78% of the faces I'd seen. On the other side of the continuum, people with facial agnosia accurately identify an average of 57%.

I felt pleased with my result, but also taken aback. I recalled many of the old faces, but rarely confused a new face for one that I'd seen before. My result on this measure, called the mistaken recognition percentage, was 18%. Typical rememberers, super-recognizers and face-blind individuals all have a false alarm rate of about 30% on average. So why was I confusing a stranger's face for my elderly relative's?

Investigating Potential Reasons

It was theorized that I likely possessed some exceptional facial identifier capabilities. Everyone has a database of the faces we know in our recollection, but superior face rememberers – and probably almost superior rememberers like me – have a fairly substantial and precise catalogue. We're also possibly to differentiate visages – that is, assign characteristics to each face, such as approachability or rudeness. Studies suggests that the second aspect helps people to develop and store faces to enduring recollection. While individuating may help me remember people, it may also deceive me into seeing my elderly relative in a woman who has a analogous presence.

In moreover, it was thought I might be "a attentive countenance examiner", meaning I pay a considerable notice to faces. Others may have more incorrect identification moments, thinking they know someone they don't know. But because I tend to look closely at faces, I am prone to notice the unfamiliar individual who resembles my grandmother. Indeed, one companion who said she doesn't make person recognition mistakes admitted she doesn't really look at the people around her.

Researching Hyperfamiliarity for Faces

These tests helped me understand where I stood on the spectrum. But I wanted to understand more about what is happening in the brain when we "identify" unfamiliar individuals. Researching further, I read about a syndrome called excessive facial recognition (HFF), in which unrecognized faces appear familiar. On the surface, this sounded like it could relate to me. But the small number of recorded occurrences all took place after a health incident such as a convulsion or cerebral accident, unlike the peculiarity that I've been observing my whole mature years.

Through scientific platforms, experts have heard from about 24,000 face-blind individuals, as well as people with all kinds of person recognition problems, including visual distortions, like when faces appear to be dissolving. Researchers study many of these people, using instruments like the known/unknown countenances task and the facial recall assessment.

Experts have heard from only a handful of people with possible HFF in extended periods of research.

"The prevalence is quite low," one expert said of HFF. However, they speculated that there may be a continuum, with some people who think all visages is known, and others, like me, who only experience it a multiple instances a month.

{Understanding