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In my young adulthood, I noticed my grandma through the glass of a coffee house. I felt dumbstruck – she had died the year before. I gazed for a moment, then recalled it couldn't be her.

I'd encountered similar occurrences throughout my life. Periodically, I "recognized" a person I was unacquainted with. At times I could quickly determine who the unknown individual reminded me of – like my grandma. On other occasions, a countenance simply had a indistinct knowingness I couldn't recognize.

Examining the Range of Face Identification Experiences

In recent times, I began questioning if different individuals have these unusual experiences. When I asked my acquaintances, one said she frequently sees individuals in random places who look known. Others at times confuse a unfamiliar individual or public figure for someone they know in actual life. But some described no such experiences – they could effortlessly recognize people they'd met and people they hadn't.

I felt curious by this range of experiences. Was it just yearning that made me see my grandma that day – or some kind of brain malfunction? Scientific investigation has found we spend about a quarter-hour of every hour looking at faces – do we just err sometimes? I was starting to understand that we can all see the same face but not perceive the same thing.

Understanding the Continuum of Facial Recognition Abilities

Scientists have developed many tests to assess the ability to recall faces. There exists a broad spectrum: at one side are super-recognizers, who remember faces they have seen only momentarily or a long time ago; at the other are people with facial agnosia, who often struggle to know kin, close friends 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 think I fall short. But scientists "haven't extensively researched this" as much as they've examined the ability to remember a face, according to cognitive neuroscientists. It does seem that the two skills use separate brain mechanisms; for case, there is proof 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 remember old faces.

Taking Face Identification Evaluations

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

I obtained several person recognition tests. I completed them, feeling confused at times. In one, called the Cambridge Face Memory Test, I had to look at monochrome photos of a face from multiple perspectives, then find it in groups. During another test that instructed me to pick out celebrities from a mix of photos, many of the faces felt at least known, but I couldn't exactly identify them – reminiscent to my real-life experience.

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

Understanding False Alarm Rates

I also did exceptionally in the known/unknown countenances task, which was described as especially effective for assessing someone's recall for faces. The subject looks at a collection of 60 black-and-white photos, each of a different face. Then they look through a series of 120 comparable photos – the first group plus 60 new faces – and specify which were in the initial group. The exceptional facial identifier benchmark is roughly 80%; I recalled 78% of the faces I'd seen. On the other end of the continuum, people with prosopagnosia accurately identify an average of 57%.

I felt content with my result, but also surprised. I recalled many of the old faces, but seldom misidentified a unknown visage for one that I'd seen before. My performance on this metric, called the mistaken recognition percentage, was 18%. Typical rememberers, exceptional facial identifiers and face-blind individuals all have a false alarm rate of about 30% on average. So why was I mistaking a stranger's face for my elderly relative's?

Investigating Potential Explanations

It was suggested that I likely possessed some super-recognizer abilities. Everyone has a inventory of the faces we know in our recall, but exceptional facial identifiers – and possibly near-exceptional individuals like me – have a comparatively extensive and precise catalogue. We're also possibly to differentiate visages – that is, attribute qualities to each face, such as friendliness or rudeness. Scientific investigation suggests that the second aspect helps people to acquire and store faces to enduring recollection. While differentiating may help me recognize people, it may also deceive me into seeing my elderly relative in a woman who has a analogous presence.

In addition, it was thought I might be "an engaged facial observer", meaning I pay a significant focus to faces. Others may have more mistaken recognition moments, thinking they recognize someone they don't know. But because I tend to look carefully at faces, I am prone to notice the unfamiliar individual who looks like my grandma. Indeed, one companion who said she doesn't make person recognition mistakes confessed she doesn't really look at the people around her.

Examining Hyperfamiliarity for Faces

These tests helped me understand where I sat on the continuum. But I wanted to understand more about what is happening in the brain when we "identify" unknown people. Researching further, I read about a syndrome called over-familiarity with countenances (HFF), in which unrecognized faces appear recognizable. On the surface, this sounded like it could relate to me. But the handful of documented instances all happened after a physical event such as a epileptic episode or stroke, unlike the idiosyncrasy that I've been observing 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 person recognition problems, including visual distortions, like when faces appear to be melting. Researchers study many of these people, using tools like the old/new faces task and the memory for faces evaluation.

Experts have heard from only a few of people with potential HFF in many years of study.

"The occurrence rate is quite low," one expert said of HFF. However, they theorized that there may be a continuum, with some people who think each countenance is recognizable, and others, like me, who only experience it a several occasions a month.

{Understanding