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During my twenties, I observed my elderly relative through the pane of a coffee shop. I felt stunned – she had passed away the previous year. I gazed for a brief period, then remembered it couldn't be her.

I'd had similar experiences throughout my life. Periodically, I "identified" an individual I was unacquainted with. Occasionally I could rapidly determine who the stranger resembled – for instance my grandma. In other instances, a face simply had a vague familiarity I couldn't identify.

Examining the Variety of Face Identification Capabilities

In recent times, I became curious if others have these odd experiences. When I inquired my acquaintances, one mentioned she regularly sees persons in unexpected places who look recognizable. Others at times misidentify a unfamiliar individual or celebrity for someone they know in actual life. But some mentioned completely different responses – they could readily distinguish people they'd met and people they hadn't.

I felt intrigued by this diversity of responses. Was it just longing that made me see my grandma that day – or some kind of mental glitch? Studies has found we spend about 14 minutes 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.

Comprehending the Spectrum of Facial Recognition Skills

Scientists have created many tests to measure the capacity to remember faces. There exists a broad spectrum: at one side are superior face rememberers, who recall faces they have seen only briefly or a long time ago; at the other are people with facial agnosia, who often have difficulty to know relatives, intimate companions and even themselves.

Some tests also assess how proficient someone is at determining if they have not seen a face before. This is where I believe I am deficient. But experts "haven't extensively researched this" as much as they've examined the ability to remember a face, according to brain researchers. It does seem that the two skills use different brain mechanisms; for example, there is evidence that super-recognizers and face-blind individuals do about as well as each other at recognizing new faces, despite their wildly different abilities to remember old faces.

Undergoing Person Recognition Tests

I felt intrigued whether these tests would provide insight on why strangers look known. Was I someone who never forgets a face? I often remember people more than they remember me, and feel disheartened – a feeling that experts say is common for exceptional facial identifiers. But maybe I hyper-recognize faces – to the degree that even some new faces look recognizable.

I obtained several person recognition tests. I completed them, feeling puzzled at times. In one, called the Cambridge Face Memory Test, I had to look at grayscale photos of a face from multiple perspectives, then find it in groups. During another test that told me to pick out famous people 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 less than confident about my outcome. But after assessment of my scores, I had properly distinguished 96% of the celebrity faces. The determination was that I qualified as a "borderline super-recognizer".

Grasping Mistaken Recognition Rates

I also did exceptionally in the known/unknown countenances task, which was described as notably useful for measuring someone's memory for faces. The test-taker looks at a series of 60 monochrome photos, each of a different face. Then they review a string of 120 comparable photos – the original series plus 60 unfamiliar countenances – and indicate which were in the original collection. The super-recognizer threshold is roughly 80%; I recalled 78% of the faces I'd seen. On the other end of the range, people with prosopagnosia accurately identify an average of 57%.

I felt satisfied with my performance, but also astonished. I remembered many of the old faces, but rarely misidentified a unfamiliar countenance for one that I'd seen before. My score on this measure, called the mistaken recognition percentage, was 18%. Normal recognizers, superior face rememberers and those with facial agnosia all have a incorrect identification frequency of about 30% on average. So why was I misidentifying a unfamiliar individual's face for my grandma's?

Examining Possible Causes

It was proposed that I likely possessed some superior face rememberer abilities. Everyone has a inventory of the faces we know in our memory, but exceptional facial identifiers – and possibly almost superior rememberers like me – have a comparatively extensive and detailed catalogue. We're also probably to distinguish countenances – that is, ascribe qualities to each face, such as approachability or rudeness. Scientific investigation suggests that the second aspect helps people to develop and store faces to enduring recollection. While differentiating may help me remember people, it may also trick me into seeing my grandma in a woman who has a similar air.

In moreover, it was thought I might be "an engaged facial observer", meaning I pay a lot of attention 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 inclined to notice the unfamiliar individual who similar to my elderly relative. Indeed, one acquaintance 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 positioned on the spectrum. 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 hyperfamiliarity for faces (HFF), in which unrecognized faces appear known. Superficially, this sounded like it could pertain to me. But the few of recorded occurrences all took place after a medical episode such as a seizure or cerebral accident, unlike the idiosyncrasy that I've been experiencing my whole grown-up existence.

Through scientific platforms, experts have heard from about 24,000 prosopagnosics, as well as people with all kinds of facial recognition problems, including sight abnormalities, like when faces appear to be melting. Researchers study many of these people, using tools like the known/unknown countenances task and the Cambridge Face Memory Test.

Experts have heard from only a handful of people with potential HFF in long durations of research.

"The occurrence rate is quite low," one expert said of HFF. However, they hypothesized that there may be a spectrum, with some people who think all visages is known, and others, like me, who only encounter it a several occasions a month.

{Understanding