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In my young adulthood, I observed my grandma through the pane of a coffee shop. I felt astonished – she had departed the prior year. I stared for a short time, then recalled it was impossible to be her.

I'd had similar experiences throughout my life. Periodically, I "knew" someone I was unacquainted with. At times I could rapidly identify who the unfamiliar person reminded me of – for instance my elderly relative. In other instances, a visage simply had a subtle recognition I couldn't recognize.

Investigating the Spectrum of Facial Recognition Experiences

Lately, I started wondering if others have these unusual experiences. When I inquired my acquaintances, one commented she often sees individuals in unpredictable places who look known. Others occasionally confuse a unfamiliar individual or famous person for someone they know in real life. But some described nothing of the kind – they could readily recognize people they'd met and people they hadn't.

I felt fascinated by this spectrum of perceptions. Was it just yearning that made me see my grandma that day – or some kind of cognitive error? Studies has found we spend about 14 minutes of every hour looking at faces – do we just make mistakes sometimes? I was beginning to realize that we can all see the same face but not experience the same thing.

Comprehending the Continuum of Face Identification Skills

Scientists have created many tests to measure the capacity to recognize faces. There exists a extensive variety: at one extreme are superior face rememberers, who recall faces they have seen only briefly or a long time ago; at the other are people with face blindness, who often find it challenging to recognize kin, dear acquaintances and even themselves.

Some tests also assess how skilled someone is at telling if they have not seen a face before. This is where I suspect I have limitations. But researchers "haven't thoroughly investigated this" as much as they've examined the ability to recall a face, according to cognitive neuroscientists. It does seem that the two skills use different brain functions; for instance, there is indication that super-recognizers and prosopagnosics do about as well as each other at recognizing new faces, despite their vastly dissimilar abilities to remember old faces.

Taking Face Identification Tests

I felt intrigued whether these tests would shed some light on why unknown people look known. Was I someone who constantly recalls a face? I often remember people more than they recall me, and feel disheartened – a emotion that experts say is frequent for super-recognizers. But maybe I over-recognize faces – to the point that even some new faces look recognizable.

I received several person recognition tests. I waded through them, feeling stumped at times. In one, called the facial recall assessment, I had to look at black-and-white photos of a face from multiple perspectives, then find it in groups. During another test that directed me to pick out public figures from a mix of photos, many of the faces felt at least known, but I couldn't precisely recognize them – similar to my actual experience.

I felt doubtful about my outcome. But after analysis of my performance, I had properly distinguished 96% of the famous person faces. The finding was that I qualified as a "almost superior face rememberer".

Comprehending False Alarm Percentages

I also excelled in the known/unknown countenances task, which was described as notably useful for assessing someone's recall for faces. The participant looks at a sequence of 60 monochrome photos, each of a different face. Then they examine a string of 120 similar photos – the first group plus 60 unfamiliar countenances – and indicate which were in the first set. The exceptional facial identifier threshold is roughly 80%; I recalled 78% of the faces I'd seen. On the other side of the range, people with facial agnosia correctly guess an average of 57%.

I felt content with my result, but also taken aback. I recognized many of the familiar visages, but rarely confused a unknown visage for one that I'd seen before. My result on this measure, called the incorrect identification frequency, was 18%. Average identifiers, super-recognizers and those with facial agnosia all have a false alarm rate of about 30% on average. So why was I confusing a unfamiliar individual's face for my elderly relative's?

Exploring Potential Reasons

It was theorized that I possibly possessed some super-recognizer capacities. Everyone has a catalogue of the faces we know in our recall, but superior face rememberers – and possibly near-exceptional individuals like me – have a fairly substantial and detailed catalogue. We're also likely to individuate faces – that is, assign traits to each face, such as friendliness or rudeness. Scientific investigation suggests that the later element helps people to develop and store faces to enduring recollection. While differentiating may help me recognize people, it may also deceive me into seeing my elderly relative in a woman who has a comparable demeanor.

In moreover, it was believed I might be "a attentive countenance examiner", meaning I pay a significant focus to faces. Others may have more false alarm moments, thinking they identify someone they don't know. But because I tend to look closely at faces, I am inclined to notice the unknown person who similar to my grandmother. Indeed, one acquaintance who said she doesn't make person recognition mistakes acknowledged she doesn't really look at the people around her.

Researching Excessive Recognition for Faces

These tests helped me understand where I positioned on the spectrum. But I wanted to understand more about what is happening in the brain when we "recognize" unfamiliar individuals. Examining further, I read about a syndrome called hyperfamiliarity for faces (HFF), in which unknown faces appear recognizable. Superficially, this sounded like it could pertain to me. But the handful of reported cases all took place after a medical episode such as a convulsion or brain attack, unlike the quirk that I've been observing my whole adult life.

Through research sites, experts have heard from about 24,000 those with facial agnosia, as well as people with all kinds of face identification difficulties, including perceptual alterations, like when faces appear to be liquefying. 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 few of people with suspected HFF in many years of research.

"The prevalence is quite low," one expert said of HFF. However, they theorized that there may be a continuum, with some people who think every face is familiar, and others, like me, who only encounter it a few times a month.

{Understanding