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During my mid-20s, I spotted my grandmother through the pane of a café. I felt astonished – she had died the prior year. I stared for a brief period, then reminded myself it was impossible to be her.

I'd experienced similar situations during my life. Periodically, I "recognized" a person I had never met. Occasionally I could promptly determine who the unknown individual resembled – like my grandmother. Other times, a face simply had a indistinct knowingness I couldn't place.

Exploring the Variety of Face Identification Experiences

Lately, I became curious if other people have these unusual experiences. When I asked my acquaintances, one mentioned she often sees people in random places who look known. Others at times mistake a unknown person or public figure for someone they know in everyday existence. But some reported nothing of the kind – they could easily distinguish people they'd met and people they hadn't.

I felt fascinated by this range of perceptions. Was it just desire that made me see my elderly relative that day – or some kind of brain malfunction? Scientific investigation has found we spend about a quarter-hour of every hour looking at faces – do we just have inaccuracies sometimes? I was beginning to realize that we can all see the same face but not interpret the same thing.

Understanding the Spectrum of Face Identification Skills

Investigators have created many tests to assess the capacity to recall faces. There exists a extensive variety: at one end are exceptional facial identifiers, who recognize faces they have seen only for a short time or a considerable time past; at the other are people with facial agnosia, who often struggle to identify kin, close friends and even themselves.

Some tests also capture how proficient someone is at telling if they have not seen a face before. This is where I believe I am deficient. But researchers "just haven't dug into this" as much as they've looked at the ability to recognize a face, according to cognitive neuroscientists. It does seem that the two capabilities use different brain mechanisms; for case, there is indication that super-recognizers and prosopagnosics do about as well as each other at discerning new faces, despite their vastly dissimilar abilities to remember old faces.

Taking Facial Recognition Evaluations

I felt curious whether these tests would shed some light on why unknown people look familiar. Was I someone who always remembers a face? I often recall people more than they recognize me, and feel disappointed – a sentiment that experts say is common for super-recognizers. But maybe I hyper-recognize faces – to the degree that even some new faces look known.

I obtained several face identification tests. I completed them, feeling confused at times. In one, called the Cambridge Face Memory Test, I had to look at monochrome photos of a face from three angles, then find it in lineups. During another test that told me to pick out celebrities from a mix of photos, many of the faces felt at least familiar, but I couldn't quite place them – comparable to my actual experience.

I felt less than confident about my results. But after evaluation of my results, I had accurately recognized 96% of the famous person faces. The conclusion was that I qualified as a "borderline super-recognizer".

Comprehending Incorrect Identification Rates

I also performed well in the previously seen/unfamiliar faces task, which was described as especially effective for assessing someone's recall for faces. The participant looks at a series of 60 grayscale photos, each of a different face. Then they look through a series of 120 comparable photos – the initial collection plus 60 unknown visages – and indicate which were in the first set. The superior face rememberer threshold is roughly 80%; I recognized 78% of the faces I'd seen. On the other extreme of the continuum, people with prosopagnosia properly recognize an average of 57%.

I felt satisfied with my score, but also taken aback. I remembered many of the familiar visages, but rarely confused a unfamiliar countenance for one that I'd seen before. My result on this measure, called the incorrect identification frequency, was 18%. Typical rememberers, exceptional facial identifiers and those with facial agnosia all have a mistaken recognition percentage of about 30% on average. So why was I confusing a stranger's face for my grandma's?

Examining Plausible Causes

It was proposed that I likely possessed some superior face rememberer capabilities. Everyone has a database of the faces we know in our recall, but exceptional facial identifiers – and possibly almost superior rememberers like me – have a comparatively extensive and precise catalogue. We're also likely to distinguish countenances – that is, attribute qualities to each face, such as amiability or discourtesy. Studies suggests that the later element helps people to acquire and retain faces to long-term memory. While individuating may help me recognize people, it may also mislead me into seeing my grandmother in a woman who has a similar air.

In furthermore, it was considered I might be "a attentive countenance examiner", meaning I pay a significant focus to faces. Others may have more mistaken recognition moments, thinking they identify someone they don't know. But because I tend to look closely at faces, I am prone to notice the unknown person who looks like my elderly relative. Indeed, one acquaintance who said she doesn't make facial recognition mistakes admitted she doesn't really look at the people around her.

Researching Excessive Recognition for Faces

These evaluations helped me understand where I stood on the range. But I wanted to understand more about what is happening in the brain when we "know" unfamiliar individuals. Examining further, I read about a syndrome called excessive facial recognition (HFF), in which unknown faces appear recognizable. On the surface, this sounded like it could relate to me. But the few of documented instances all occurred after a physical event such as a seizure or stroke, unlike the peculiarity that I've been noticing my whole adult life.

Through research sites, experts have heard from about 24,000 face-blind individuals, as well as people with all kinds of face identification challenges, including sight abnormalities, like when faces appear to be liquefying. Researchers study many of these people, using methods like the old/new faces task and the facial recall assessment.

Experts have heard from only a small number of people with suspected HFF in many years of research.

"The prevalence is quite low," one expert said of HFF. However, they hypothesized that there may be a range, with some people who think every face is recognizable, and others, like me, who only encounter it a several occasions a month.

{Understanding