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During my twenties, I observed my grandmother through the glass of a coffee house. I felt astonished – she had died the year before. I looked intently for a brief period, then reminded myself it couldn't possibly be her.

I'd had similar occurrences throughout my life. Occasionally, I "identified" a person I didn't know. Occasionally I could rapidly pinpoint who the stranger reminded me of – like my elderly relative. Other times, a face simply had a vague familiarity I couldn't place.

Exploring the Variety of Face Identification Capabilities

Lately, I started wondering if others have these odd experiences. When I asked my friends, one said she often sees persons in random places who look familiar. Others at times confuse a unknown person or celebrity for someone they know in everyday existence. But some reported nothing of the kind – they could readily recognize people they'd met and people they hadn't.

I felt intrigued by this diversity of perceptions. Was it just yearning that made me see my grandmother that day – or some kind of cognitive error? Research has found we spend about 14 minutes of every hour looking at faces – do we just make mistakes sometimes? I was commencing to comprehend that we can all see the same face but not perceive the same thing.

Comprehending the Continuum of Face Identification Abilities

Researchers have developed many assessments to quantify the capacity to remember faces. There exists a extensive variety: at one extreme are exceptional facial identifiers, who recall faces they have seen only momentarily or a considerable time past; at the other are people with prosopagnosia, who often find it challenging to know family, dear acquaintances and even themselves.

Some evaluations also assess how good someone is at determining if they have not seen a face before. This is where I think I am deficient. But scientists "haven't extensively researched this" as much as they've examined the capacity to recall a face, according to neuroscience experts. It does seem that the two skills use separate brain mechanisms; for instance, there is proof that super-recognizers and face-blind individuals do about as well as each other at discerning new faces, despite their extremely distinct abilities to recognize old faces.

Undergoing Facial Recognition Tests

I felt interested whether these assessments would shed some light on why strangers look familiar. Was I someone who always remembers a face? I often remember people more than they recall me, and feel disheartened – a emotion that scientists say is typical for superior face rememberers. But maybe I over-recognize faces – to the extent that even some new faces look familiar.

I received several facial recognition tests. I waded through them, feeling puzzled at times. In one, called the facial recall assessment, I had to look at monochrome photos of a face from different viewpoints, 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 known, but I couldn't precisely recognize them – reminiscent to my actual experience.

I felt uncertain about my outcome. But after assessment of my scores, I had correctly identified 96% of the famous person faces. The conclusion was that I qualified as a "near-exceptional facial identifier".

Understanding Incorrect Identification Percentages

I also did exceptionally in the previously seen/unfamiliar faces task, which was described as especially effective for assessing someone's recall for faces. The subject looks at a series of 60 monochrome photos, each of a different face. Then they review a string of 120 analogous photos – the initial collection plus 60 new faces – and specify which were in the original collection. The exceptional facial identifier threshold is roughly 80%; I recalled 78% of the faces I'd seen. On the other end of the range, people with face blindness properly recognize an average of 57%.

I felt content with my performance, but also astonished. I remembered many of the previously seen countenances, but infrequently misidentified a unknown visage for one that I'd seen before. My score on this indicator, called the false alarm rate, was 18%. Typical rememberers, superior face rememberers and face-blind individuals all have a incorrect identification frequency of about 30% on average. So why was I misidentifying a unfamiliar individual's face for my grandma's?

Examining Potential Reasons

It was proposed that I probably possessed some super-recognizer capabilities. Everyone has a database of the faces we know in our recall, but super-recognizers – and possibly almost superior rememberers like me – have a relatively large and high-resolution catalogue. We're also likely to differentiate visages – that is, ascribe characteristics to each face, such as friendliness or impoliteness. Studies suggests that the latter helps people to develop and retain faces to permanent recall. While distinguishing may help me remember people, it may also deceive me into seeing my grandmother in a woman who has a analogous presence.

In furthermore, it was considered I might be "a attentive countenance examiner", 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 unknown person who looks like my grandma. Indeed, one companion who said she doesn't make face identification mistakes admitted she doesn't really look at the people around her.

Researching Over-familiarity 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" unfamiliar individuals. Researching further, I read about a syndrome called hyperfamiliarity for faces (HFF), in which unknown faces appear known. On the surface, this sounded like it could relate to me. But the few of documented instances all happened after a medical episode such as a epileptic episode or cerebral accident, unlike the peculiarity that I've been observing my whole grown-up existence.

Through investigative websites, experts have heard from about 24,000 face-blind individuals, as well as people with all kinds of facial recognition problems, including sight abnormalities, like when faces appear to be liquefying. Researchers study many of these people, using tools like the old/new faces task and the Cambridge Face Memory Test.

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

"The frequency is quite low," one expert said of HFF. However, they speculated that there may be a spectrum, with some people who think every face is recognizable, and others, like me, who only encounter it a multiple instances a month.

{Understanding