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In my young adulthood, I observed my grandma through the window of a coffee house. I felt astonished – she had departed the prior year. I stared for a brief period, then recalled it couldn't be her.

I'd encountered analogous experiences throughout my life. From time to time, I "knew" an individual I didn't know. At times I could quickly pinpoint who the unknown individual resembled – for instance my grandma. On other occasions, a visage simply had a subtle recognition I couldn't recognize.

Investigating the Range of Face Identification Capabilities

Lately, I started wondering if others have these odd situations. When I inquired my companions, one commented she often sees persons in unexpected places who look known. Others sometimes misidentify a stranger or public figure for someone they know in real life. But some described no such experiences – they could readily identify people they'd met and people they hadn't.

I felt intrigued by this range of experiences. Was it just desire that made me see my elderly relative that day – or some kind of mental glitch? Studies has found we spend about approximately 900 seconds of every hour looking at faces – do we just err sometimes? I was beginning to realize that we can all see the same face but not interpret the same thing.

Understanding the Continuum of Facial Recognition Skills

Scientists have created many tests to quantify the capacity to recognize faces. There exists a broad spectrum: at one extreme are super-recognizers, who recognize faces they have seen only momentarily or a long time ago; at the other are people with face blindness, who often find it challenging to know family, intimate companions and even themselves.

Some tests also capture how skilled someone is at telling if they have not seen a face before. This is where I believe I am deficient. But scientists "just haven't dug into this" as much as they've looked at the skill to recognize a face, according to cognitive neuroscientists. It does seem that the two skills use separate brain processes; for case, there is indication that superior face rememberers and those with facial agnosia do about as well as each other at discerning new faces, despite their extremely distinct abilities to recall old faces.

Completing Face Identification Tests

I felt curious whether these assessments would provide insight on why unfamiliar individuals look known. Was I someone who constantly recalls a face? I often recall people more than they recall me, and feel disheartened – a sentiment that experts say is frequent for exceptional facial identifiers. But maybe I excessively identify faces – to the point that even some new faces look recognizable.

I received several face identification tests. I worked through them, feeling puzzled at times. In one, called the memory for faces evaluation, I had to look at monochrome photos of a face from multiple perspectives, 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 – reminiscent to my actual experience.

I felt uncertain about my results. But after assessment of my results, I had accurately recognized 96% of the public figure faces. The conclusion was that I qualified as a "borderline super-recognizer".

Grasping Mistaken Recognition Percentages

I also did exceptionally in the known/unknown countenances task, which was described as notably useful for assessing someone's recognition for faces. The test-taker looks at a collection of 60 monochrome photos, each of a distinct face. Then they look through a series of 120 comparable photos – the original series plus 60 new faces – and indicate which were in the original collection. The exceptional facial identifier threshold is roughly 80%; I remembered 78% of the faces I'd seen. On the other end of the range, people with face blindness correctly guess an average of 57%.

I felt pleased with my result, but also surprised. I remembered many of the familiar visages, but infrequently mistook a new face for one that I'd seen before. My performance on this measure, called the incorrect identification frequency, was 18%. Typical rememberers, superior face rememberers and prosopagnosics all have a mistaken recognition percentage of about 30% on average. So why was I mistaking a stranger's face for my elderly relative's?

Investigating Potential Reasons

It was suggested that I likely possessed some super-recognizer capabilities. Everyone has a inventory of the faces we know in our memory, but superior face rememberers – and possibly borderline straddlers like me – have a comparatively extensive and high-resolution catalogue. We're also likely to individuate faces – that is, attribute qualities to each face, such as friendliness or discourtesy. Studies suggests that the second aspect helps people to acquire and commit faces to long-term memory. While differentiating may help me recall people, it may also trick me into seeing my grandmother in a woman who has a analogous presence.

In addition, it was believed I might be "an active face perceiver", meaning I pay a significant focus to faces. Others may have more incorrect identification moments, thinking they recognize someone they don't know. But because I tend to look closely at faces, I am disposed to notice the stranger who similar to my grandmother. Indeed, one acquaintance who said she doesn't make face identification mistakes admitted she doesn't really look at the people around her.

Researching Excessive Recognition for Faces

These assessments 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" unknown people. Examining further, I read about a syndrome called over-familiarity with countenances (HFF), in which unfamiliar faces appear familiar. Superficially, this sounded like it could relate to me. But the few of documented instances all happened after a medical episode such as a convulsion or stroke, unlike the quirk that I've been observing 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 person recognition problems, including visual distortions, like when faces appear to be dissolving. Researchers study many of these people, using methods like the known/unknown countenances task and the Cambridge Face Memory Test.

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

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

{Understanding