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Throughout my twenties, I noticed my elderly relative through the window of a coffee shop. I felt dumbstruck – she had departed the year before. I looked intently for a short time, then remembered it was impossible to be her.

I'd encountered similar experiences all through my life. Occasionally, I "knew" an individual I didn't know. At times I could rapidly identify who the unfamiliar person reminded me of – like my grandma. In other instances, a countenance simply had a vague familiarity I couldn't identify.

Examining the Variety of Facial Recognition Capabilities

Recently, I became curious if other people have these odd situations. When I questioned my companions, one said she regularly sees persons in unexpected places who look familiar. Others occasionally confuse a unfamiliar individual or famous person for someone they know in everyday existence. But some reported no such experiences – they could effortlessly recognize people they'd met and people they hadn't.

I felt intrigued by this diversity of experiences. Was it just yearning that made me see my grandma that day – or some kind of mental glitch? Studies has found we spend about a quarter-hour of every hour looking at faces – do we just have inaccuracies sometimes? I was commencing to comprehend that we can all see the same face but not interpret the same thing.

Grasping the Continuum of Person Recognition Abilities

Scientists have developed many evaluations to measure the capacity to recognize faces. There exists a wide range: at one extreme are exceptional facial identifiers, who recall faces they have seen only for a short time or a long time ago; at the other are people with prosopagnosia, who often find it challenging to identify kin, dear acquaintances and even themselves.

Some tests also assess how good someone is at determining if they have not seen a face before. This is where I believe I am deficient. But experts "haven't thoroughly investigated this" as much as they've studied the skill to recognize a face, according to neuroscience experts. It does seem that the two skills use distinct brain processes; for example, 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 remember old faces.

Completing Facial Recognition Assessments

I felt interested whether these tests would offer understanding on why unfamiliar individuals look known. Was I someone who always remembers a face? I often recognize people more than they recognize me, and feel disappointed – a feeling that researchers say is typical for superior face rememberers. But maybe I hyper-recognize faces – to the point that even some new faces look known.

I obtained several face identification tests. I waded through them, feeling stumped 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 recognizable, but I couldn't precisely recognize them – similar to my real-life experience.

I felt doubtful about my outcome. But after evaluation of my results, I had correctly identified 96% of the public figure faces. The determination was that I qualified as a "almost superior face rememberer".

Understanding False Alarm Frequencies

I also excelled in the old/new faces task, which was described as especially effective for evaluating someone's memory for faces. The test-taker looks at a sequence of 60 monochrome photos, each of a different face. Then they examine a series of 120 analogous photos – the first group plus 60 unknown visages – and specify which were in the first set. The superior face rememberer cutoff is roughly 80%; I recognized 78% of the faces I'd seen. On the other extreme of the continuum, people with facial agnosia properly recognize an average of 57%.

I felt satisfied with my performance, but also taken aback. I recognized many of the previously seen countenances, but seldom confused a unfamiliar countenance for one that I'd seen before. My result on this indicator, called the mistaken recognition percentage, was 18%. Typical rememberers, superior face rememberers and those with facial agnosia all have a incorrect identification frequency of about 30% on average. So why was I confusing a stranger's face for my elderly relative's?

Investigating Possible Reasons

It was theorized that I likely possessed some superior face rememberer abilities. Everyone has a catalogue of the faces we know in our memory, but exceptional facial identifiers – and possibly almost superior rememberers like me – have a relatively large and high-resolution catalogue. We're also probably to individuate faces – that is, assign qualities to each face, such as friendliness or impoliteness. Scientific investigation suggests that the later element helps people to develop and retain faces to enduring recollection. While individuating may help me recognize people, it may also mislead me into seeing my grandmother in a woman who has a similar air.

In furthermore, it was thought I might be "a attentive countenance examiner", meaning I pay a lot of attention to faces. Others may have more mistaken recognition moments, thinking they know someone they don't know. But because I tend to look closely at faces, I am prone to notice the unfamiliar individual who resembles my grandma. Indeed, one companion who said she doesn't make facial recognition mistakes confessed she doesn't really look at the people around her.

Researching Excessive Recognition for Faces

These evaluations helped me understand where I sat on the range. But I wanted to understand more about what is happening in the brain when we "know" unfamiliar individuals. Researching further, I read about a syndrome called excessive facial recognition (HFF), in which unfamiliar faces appear known. Superficially, this sounded like it could apply to me. But the small number of recorded occurrences all took place after a health incident such as a convulsion or cerebral accident, unlike the peculiarity that I've been noticing my whole grown-up existence.

Through research sites, experts have heard from about 24,000 prosopagnosics, as well as people with all kinds of facial recognition challenges, including visual distortions, like when faces appear to be liquefying. Researchers study many of these people, using instruments like the previously seen/unfamiliar faces task and the facial recall assessment.

Experts have heard from only a few of people with suspected 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 range, with some people who think each countenance is recognizable, and others, like me, who only undergo it a several occasions a month.

{Understanding