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Throughout my mid-20s, I noticed my elderly relative through the pane of a coffee shop. I felt dumbstruck – she had departed the year before. I looked intently for a brief period, then remembered it couldn't possibly be her.

I'd had similar experiences throughout my life. From time to time, I "recognized" a person I was unacquainted with. Sometimes I could rapidly pinpoint who the unknown individual resembled – for instance my grandmother. Other times, a face simply had a subtle recognition I couldn't identify.

Investigating the Variety of Face Identification Experiences

Recently, I began questioning if different individuals have these peculiar encounters. When I asked my acquaintances, one commented she frequently sees persons in unpredictable places who look familiar. Others sometimes misidentify a unfamiliar individual or public figure for someone they know in everyday existence. But some mentioned nothing of the kind – they could effortlessly identify people they'd met and people they hadn't.

I felt intrigued by this range of responses. Was it just yearning 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 perceive the same thing.

Understanding the Continuum of Facial Recognition Skills

Researchers have developed many tests to measure the capacity to recall faces. There exists a broad spectrum: at one end are super-recognizers, who remember 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 know kin, 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 suspect I fall short. But scientists "haven't thoroughly investigated this" as much as they've studied the ability to remember a face, according to cognitive neuroscientists. It does seem that the two capabilities use different 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 extremely distinct abilities to recall old faces.

Undergoing Facial Recognition Tests

I felt intrigued whether these assessments would shed some light on why unfamiliar individuals look familiar. Was I someone who always remembers a face? I often recognize people more than they remember me, and feel disheartened – a sentiment that researchers say is frequent for superior face rememberers. But maybe I excessively identify faces – to the point that even some new faces look recognizable.

I was sent several facial recognition tests. I completed them, feeling puzzled at times. In one, called the memory for faces evaluation, I had to look at black-and-white photos of a face from multiple perspectives, then find it in lineups. During another test that instructed me to pick out famous people from a mix of photos, many of the faces felt at least recognizable, but I couldn't exactly identify them – comparable to my real-life experience.

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

Grasping False Alarm Frequencies

I also did exceptionally in the old/new faces task, which was described as notably useful for measuring someone's recall for faces. The subject looks at a sequence of 60 monochrome photos, each of a different face. Then they examine a series of 120 analogous photos – the initial collection plus 60 new faces – and indicate which were in the original collection. The superior face rememberer cutoff 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 satisfied with my result, but also surprised. I remembered many of the old faces, but rarely confused a unknown visage for one that I'd seen before. My score on this metric, called the incorrect identification frequency, was 18%. Typical rememberers, superior face rememberers and prosopagnosics all have a incorrect identification frequency of about 30% on average. So why was I misidentifying a stranger's face for my grandma's?

Exploring Possible Causes

It was suggested that I possibly possessed some superior face rememberer capabilities. Everyone has a inventory of the faces we know in our recollection, but exceptional facial identifiers – and possibly almost superior rememberers like me – have a comparatively extensive and detailed catalogue. We're also likely to differentiate visages – that is, attribute traits to each face, such as approachability or rudeness. Scientific investigation suggests that the second aspect helps people to develop and store faces to long-term memory. While distinguishing 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 significant focus to faces. Others may have more false alarm moments, thinking they identify someone they don't know. But because I tend to look closely at faces, I am disposed to notice the unfamiliar individual who similar to my elderly relative. Indeed, one friend who said she doesn't make person recognition mistakes admitted she doesn't really look at the people around her.

Investigating Over-familiarity for Faces

These assessments helped me understand where I stood on the range. But I wanted to understand more about what is happening in the brain when we "identify" strangers. Examining further, I read about a syndrome called excessive facial recognition (HFF), in which unknown faces appear known. Superficially, this sounded like it could relate to me. But the few of reported cases all took place after a physical event such as a convulsion or stroke, unlike the quirk that I've been noticing my whole grown-up existence.

Through research sites, experts have heard from about 24,000 those with facial agnosia, as well as people with all kinds of face identification challenges, including sight abnormalities, like when faces appear to be liquefying. Researchers study many of these people, using methods like the old/new faces task and the Cambridge Face Memory Test.

Experts have heard from only a small number of people with potential HFF in extended periods of study.

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

{Understanding