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Throughout my twenties, I spotted my grandmother through the pane of a café. I felt dumbstruck – she had passed away the previous year. I gazed for a short time, then remembered it couldn't possibly be her.

I'd experienced similar experiences throughout my life. Occasionally, I "identified" an individual I was unacquainted with. At times I could promptly pinpoint who the unfamiliar person reminded me of – such as my elderly relative. In other instances, a countenance simply had a indistinct knowingness I couldn't place.

Examining the Variety of Person Recognition Abilities

Recently, I became curious if different individuals have these unusual encounters. When I asked my companions, one mentioned she regularly sees individuals in random places who look familiar. Others sometimes mistake a unfamiliar individual or celebrity for someone they know in everyday existence. But some described no such experiences – they could easily identify people they'd met and people they hadn't.

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

Understanding the Continuum of Facial Recognition Abilities

Investigators have developed many assessments to measure the capacity to recall faces. There exists a extensive variety: at one extreme are super-recognizers, who recognize 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 family, intimate companions and even themselves.

Some evaluations also capture how good someone is at recognizing if they have not seen a face before. This is where I think I have limitations. But researchers "just haven't dug into this" as much as they've examined the skill to remember a face, according to cognitive neuroscientists. It does seem that the two abilities use different brain mechanisms; for instance, there is indication that exceptional facial identifiers and face-blind individuals do about as well as each other at identifying new faces, despite their extremely distinct abilities to recognize old faces.

Completing Facial Recognition Assessments

I felt interested whether these tests would provide insight on why unfamiliar individuals look known. Was I someone who always remembers a face? I often recognize people more than they recall me, and feel disappointed – a sentiment that researchers say is common for super-recognizers. But maybe I excessively identify faces – to the point that even some new faces look known.

I received several face identification tests. I worked through 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 three angles, then find it in groups. During another test that told me to pick out celebrities from a mix of photos, many of the faces felt at least known, but I couldn't quite place them – similar to my actual experience.

I felt uncertain about my results. But after evaluation of my results, I had correctly identified 96% of the celebrity faces. The conclusion was that I qualified as a "borderline super-recognizer".

Grasping Mistaken Recognition Percentages

I also did exceptionally in the old/new faces task, which was described as notably useful for evaluating someone's recognition for faces. The subject looks at a collection of 60 black-and-white photos, each of a separate face. Then they examine a string of 120 analogous photos – the original series plus 60 new faces – and specify which were in the initial group. The super-recognizer cutoff is roughly 80%; I recognized 78% of the faces I'd seen. On the other extreme of the range, people with face blindness properly recognize an average of 57%.

I felt satisfied with my score, but also astonished. I recalled many of the previously seen countenances, but seldom mistook a unfamiliar countenance for one that I'd seen before. My performance on this indicator, called the incorrect identification frequency, was 18%. Average identifiers, superior face rememberers and prosopagnosics all have a incorrect identification frequency of about 30% on average. So why was I confusing a unknown person's face for my elderly relative's?

Investigating Possible Causes

It was theorized that I likely possessed some exceptional facial identifier capacities. Everyone has a database of the faces we know in our memory, but exceptional facial identifiers – and likely near-exceptional individuals like me – have a comparatively extensive and precise catalogue. We're also probably to differentiate visages – that is, ascribe characteristics to each face, such as friendliness or rudeness. Scientific investigation suggests that the later element helps people to learn and store faces to long-term memory. While distinguishing may help me remember people, it may also trick me into seeing my elderly relative in a woman who has a similar air.

In moreover, it was considered I might be "an active face perceiver", meaning I pay a significant focus to faces. Others may have more incorrect identification moments, thinking they identify 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 friend 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 tests helped me understand where I stood on the spectrum. But I wanted to understand more about what is happening in the brain when we "know" strangers. Researching further, I read about a syndrome called excessive facial recognition (HFF), in which unknown faces appear known. Initially, this sounded like it could relate to me. But the small number of documented instances all occurred after a health incident such as a epileptic episode or brain attack, unlike the peculiarity that I've been experiencing my whole adult life.

Through scientific platforms, experts have heard from about 24,000 prosopagnosics, as well as people with all kinds of face identification challenges, including visual distortions, like when faces appear to be liquefying. Researchers study many of these people, using methods like the old/new faces task and the facial recall assessment.

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

"The prevalence 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 known, and others, like me, who only encounter it a multiple instances a month.

{Understanding