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Throughout my twenties, I observed my elderly relative through the pane of a coffee shop. I felt astonished – she had departed the previous year. I looked intently for a short time, then recalled it couldn't be her.

I'd had comparable situations all through my life. Occasionally, I "recognized" someone I didn't know. Occasionally I could quickly pinpoint who the stranger resembled – for instance my grandma. Other times, a countenance simply had a vague familiarity I couldn't place.

Examining the Range of Face Identification Capabilities

Recently, I started wondering if different individuals have these unusual encounters. When I questioned my companions, one mentioned she often sees individuals in random places who look known. Others occasionally confuse a unknown person or public figure for someone they know in real life. But some mentioned completely different responses – they could effortlessly distinguish people they'd met and people they hadn't.

I felt fascinated by this spectrum of perceptions. Was it just yearning that made me see my elderly relative 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 have inaccuracies sometimes? I was beginning to realize that we can all see the same face but not interpret the same thing.

Grasping the Spectrum of Person Recognition Skills

Scientists have developed many evaluations to measure the capacity to recall faces. There exists a extensive variety: at one side are exceptional facial identifiers, who recall faces they have seen only momentarily or a long time ago; at the other are people with face blindness, who often have difficulty to recognize relatives, intimate companions and even themselves.

Some tests also measure how good someone is at determining if they have not seen a face before. This is where I suspect I have limitations. But scientists "just haven't dug into this" as much as they've studied the capacity to remember a face, according to brain researchers. It does seem that the two capabilities use different brain functions; for example, there is indication that super-recognizers and those with facial agnosia do about as well as each other at identifying new faces, despite their wildly different abilities to remember old faces.

Undergoing Face Identification Assessments

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

I obtained several facial recognition tests. I worked through 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 three angles, 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 precisely recognize them – similar to my real-life experience.

I felt uncertain about my results. But after analysis of my results, I had accurately recognized 96% of the famous person faces. The conclusion was that I qualified as a "almost superior face rememberer".

Understanding Mistaken Recognition Rates

I also performed well in the known/unknown countenances task, which was described as notably useful for measuring someone's recall for faces. The participant looks at a collection of 60 black-and-white photos, each of a distinct face. Then they look through a series of 120 comparable photos – the first group plus 60 unfamiliar countenances – and identify which were in the original collection. The superior face rememberer threshold is roughly 80%; I recognized 78% of the faces I'd seen. On the other end of the spectrum, people with prosopagnosia properly recognize an average of 57%.

I felt pleased with my result, but also surprised. I recalled many of the old faces, but rarely mistook a unknown visage for one that I'd seen before. My score on this metric, called the false alarm rate, was 18%. Average identifiers, exceptional facial identifiers and prosopagnosics all have a mistaken recognition percentage of about 30% on average. So why was I confusing a unknown person's face for my grandmother's?

Investigating Potential Reasons

It was theorized that I probably possessed some super-recognizer capacities. Everyone has a catalogue of the faces we know in our memory, but super-recognizers – and possibly almost superior rememberers like me – have a fairly substantial and detailed catalogue. We're also possibly to individuate faces – that is, assign qualities to each face, such as approachability or discourtesy. Scientific investigation suggests that the second aspect helps people to develop and commit faces to enduring recollection. While individuating may help me recognize people, it may also trick me into seeing my elderly relative in a woman who has a comparable demeanor.

In moreover, it was believed I might be "an active face perceiver", meaning I pay a considerable notice to faces. Others may have more incorrect identification moments, thinking they recognize someone they don't know. But because I tend to look attentively at faces, I am inclined to notice the stranger who similar to my grandma. Indeed, one companion who said she doesn't make person recognition mistakes admitted she doesn't really look at the people around her.

Researching Excessive Recognition for Faces

These assessments helped me understand where I sat on the spectrum. But I wanted to understand more about what is happening in the brain when we "identify" unfamiliar individuals. Investigating further, I read about a syndrome called excessive facial recognition (HFF), in which unfamiliar faces appear recognizable. Superficially, this sounded like it could pertain to me. But the handful of documented instances all happened after a medical episode such as a epileptic episode or brain attack, unlike the peculiarity that I've been experiencing my whole grown-up existence.

Through investigative websites, experts have heard from about 24,000 prosopagnosics, as well as people with all kinds of face identification challenges, including perceptual alterations, like when faces appear to be melting. Researchers study many of these people, using instruments 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 research.

"The prevalence is quite low," one expert said of HFF. However, they theorized that there may be a spectrum, with some people who think all visages is known, and others, like me, who only undergo it a multiple instances a month.

{Understanding