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During my twenties, I observed my grandma through the window of a café. I felt stunned – she had passed away the prior year. I looked intently for a moment, then remembered it couldn't possibly be her.

I'd experienced analogous occurrences throughout my life. Periodically, I "knew" an individual I didn't know. At times I could rapidly determine who the unfamiliar person looked like – for instance my grandmother. On other occasions, a visage simply had a vague familiarity I couldn't recognize.

Exploring the Range of Face Identification Abilities

Recently, I began questioning if other people have these peculiar encounters. When I inquired my acquaintances, one commented she regularly sees persons in random places who look familiar. Others occasionally mistake a unknown person or public figure for someone they know in everyday existence. But some mentioned no such experiences – they could effortlessly recognize people they'd met and people they hadn't.

I felt fascinated by this spectrum of experiences. Was it just desire that made me see my grandma that day – or some kind of brain malfunction? Scientific investigation has found we spend about approximately 900 seconds 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 interpret the same thing.

Understanding the Spectrum of Facial Recognition Capacities

Researchers have created many tests to measure the skill to remember faces. There exists a extensive variety: at one extreme are super-recognizers, who recall faces they have seen only briefly or a distant past; at the other are people with facial agnosia, who often find it challenging to know family, intimate companions and even themselves.

Some tests also measure how skilled someone is at determining if they have not seen a face before. This is where I think I am deficient. But experts "haven't extensively researched this" as much as they've looked at the capacity to recall a face, according to cognitive neuroscientists. It does seem that the two capabilities use separate brain mechanisms; for case, there is proof that super-recognizers and those with facial agnosia do about as well as each other at recognizing new faces, despite their vastly dissimilar abilities to remember old faces.

Completing Facial Recognition Evaluations

I felt curious whether these evaluations would provide insight on why unknown people look known. Was I someone who constantly recalls a face? I often recognize people more than they recognize me, and feel let down – a sentiment that scientists say is typical for super-recognizers. But maybe I over-recognize faces – to the degree that even some new faces look familiar.

I received several facial recognition tests. I completed them, feeling puzzled 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 lineups. During another test that directed me to pick out celebrities from a mix of photos, many of the faces felt at least familiar, but I couldn't precisely recognize them – reminiscent to my real-life experience.

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

Comprehending Incorrect Identification Frequencies

I also excelled in the known/unknown countenances task, which was described as notably useful for assessing someone's recognition for faces. The participant looks at a series of 60 black-and-white photos, each of a different face. Then they look through a sequence of 120 analogous photos – the original series plus 60 unfamiliar countenances – and identify which were in the original collection. The exceptional facial identifier benchmark is roughly 80%; I recalled 78% of the faces I'd seen. On the other extreme of the spectrum, people with facial agnosia accurately identify an average of 57%.

I felt satisfied with my performance, but also taken aback. I recognized many of the familiar visages, but seldom misidentified a unfamiliar countenance for one that I'd seen before. My performance on this metric, called the incorrect identification frequency, was 18%. Typical rememberers, superior face rememberers and those with facial agnosia all have a mistaken recognition percentage of about 30% on average. So why was I misidentifying a unfamiliar individual's face for my grandmother's?

Examining Possible Reasons

It was suggested that I possibly possessed some superior face rememberer capabilities. Everyone has a database of the faces we know in our recall, but superior face rememberers – and likely borderline straddlers like me – have a fairly substantial and precise catalogue. We're also likely to differentiate visages – that is, ascribe traits to each face, such as friendliness or impoliteness. Research suggests that the later element helps people to learn and commit faces to enduring recollection. While differentiating may help me recognize people, it may also trick me into seeing my elderly relative in a woman who has a analogous presence.

In furthermore, it was considered I might be "an active face perceiver", meaning I pay a lot of attention to faces. Others may have more incorrect identification moments, thinking they know someone they don't know. But because I tend to look carefully at faces, I am disposed to notice the unfamiliar individual who resembles my grandma. Indeed, one companion who said she doesn't make facial recognition mistakes admitted she doesn't really look at the people around her.

Investigating Excessive Recognition for Faces

These assessments helped me understand where I sat on the continuum. But I wanted to understand more about what is happening in the brain when we "recognize" unknown people. Investigating further, I read about a condition called over-familiarity with countenances (HFF), in which unfamiliar faces appear recognizable. On the surface, this sounded like it could relate to me. But the small number of documented instances all took place after a physical event such as a epileptic episode or stroke, unlike the idiosyncrasy that I've been experiencing my whole grown-up existence.

Through scientific platforms, experts have heard from about 24,000 face-blind individuals, as well as people with all kinds of face identification problems, including sight abnormalities, like when faces appear to be dissolving. Researchers study many of these people, using tools like the old/new faces task and the Cambridge Face Memory Test.

Experts have heard from only a handful of people with possible HFF in long durations of study.

"The occurrence rate is quite low," one expert said of HFF. However, they speculated that there may be a range, with some people who think each countenance is recognizable, and others, like me, who only undergo it a multiple instances a month.

{Understanding