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During my mid-20s, I noticed my elderly relative through the window of a coffee house. I felt dumbstruck – she had passed away the year before. I gazed for a moment, then reminded myself it was impossible to be her.

I'd had analogous occurrences all through my life. Occasionally, I "knew" an individual I was unacquainted with. Occasionally I could rapidly pinpoint who the unknown individual reminded me of – like my elderly relative. In other instances, a visage simply had a vague familiarity I couldn't identify.

Investigating the Variety of Face Identification Experiences

In recent times, I began questioning if other people have these unusual experiences. When I asked my friends, one mentioned she often sees people in random places who look recognizable. Others at times confuse a unfamiliar individual or public figure for someone they know in actual life. But some mentioned nothing of the kind – they could readily identify people they'd met and people they hadn't.

I felt intrigued by this diversity of experiences. Was it just yearning that made me see my elderly relative 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 have inaccuracies sometimes? I was beginning to realize that we can all see the same face but not perceive the same thing.

Understanding the Continuum of Face Identification Skills

Scientists have created many tests to quantify the capacity to remember faces. There exists a wide range: at one end are super-recognizers, who recognize 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 family, intimate companions and even themselves.

Some evaluations 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 extensively researched this" as much as they've examined the capacity to recognize a face, according to brain researchers. It does seem that the two skills use distinct brain functions; 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 recall old faces.

Taking Person Recognition Tests

I felt intrigued whether these assessments would offer understanding on why strangers look known. 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 frequent for exceptional facial identifiers. But maybe I over-recognize faces – to the degree that even some new faces look known.

I received several person recognition tests. I completed them, feeling confused at times. In one, called the memory for faces evaluation, I had to look at grayscale photos of a face from different viewpoints, then find it in lineups. During another test that instructed 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 – similar to my real-life experience.

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

Comprehending False Alarm Percentages

I also did exceptionally in the previously seen/unfamiliar faces task, which was described as notably useful for measuring someone's recognition for faces. The participant looks at a sequence of 60 monochrome photos, each of a distinct face. Then they review a sequence of 120 analogous photos – the first group plus 60 unfamiliar countenances – and identify which were in the original collection. The exceptional facial identifier benchmark is roughly 80%; I remembered 78% of the faces I'd seen. On the other side of the range, people with face blindness correctly guess an average of 57%.

I felt pleased with my performance, but also astonished. I remembered many of the familiar visages, but seldom mistook a unknown visage for one that I'd seen before. My performance on this indicator, called the mistaken recognition percentage, was 18%. Normal recognizers, super-recognizers and those with facial agnosia all have a incorrect identification frequency of about 30% on average. So why was I confusing a stranger's face for my elderly relative's?

Investigating Potential Explanations

It was theorized that I likely possessed some super-recognizer abilities. Everyone has a inventory of the faces we know in our recall, but super-recognizers – and probably almost superior rememberers like me – have a relatively large and detailed catalogue. We're also probably to distinguish countenances – that is, ascribe characteristics to each face, such as amiability or rudeness. Research suggests that the later element helps people to develop and commit faces to enduring recollection. While individuating may help me remember people, it may also trick me into seeing my grandma in a woman who has a analogous presence.

In moreover, it was believed I might be "an active face perceiver", meaning I pay a considerable notice to faces. Others may have more false alarm moments, thinking they recognize someone they don't know. But because I tend to look closely at faces, I am prone to notice the unknown person who similar to my elderly relative. Indeed, one acquaintance who said she doesn't make facial recognition mistakes confessed she doesn't really look at the people around her.

Examining Over-familiarity for Faces

These assessments helped me understand where I sat on the range. But I wanted to understand more about what is happening in the brain when we "know" unfamiliar individuals. Investigating further, I read about a disorder called excessive facial recognition (HFF), in which unfamiliar faces appear familiar. On the surface, this sounded like it could pertain to me. But the handful of reported cases all took place after a physical event such as a convulsion or brain attack, unlike the quirk that I've been noticing my whole adult life.

Through investigative websites, experts have heard from about 24,000 prosopagnosics, as well as people with all kinds of facial recognition difficulties, including visual distortions, like when faces appear to be dissolving. Researchers study many of these people, using tools like the known/unknown countenances task and the facial recall assessment.

Experts have heard from only a small number of people with suspected HFF in long durations of study.

"The occurrence rate is quite low," one expert said of HFF. However, they theorized that there may be a range, with some people who think all visages is known, and others, like me, who only experience it a few times a month.

{Understanding