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During my twenties, I observed my elderly relative through the pane of a coffee shop. I felt dumbstruck – she had died the prior year. I stared for a brief period, then reminded myself it couldn't possibly be her.

I'd had analogous situations all through my life. Periodically, I "identified" a person I had never met. Sometimes I could quickly determine who the unfamiliar person looked like – for instance my grandmother. Other times, a countenance simply had a subtle recognition I couldn't recognize.

Exploring the Variety of Facial Recognition Capabilities

Lately, I became curious if others have these unusual situations. When I inquired my companions, one commented she frequently sees individuals in random places who look recognizable. Others sometimes mistake a unfamiliar individual or celebrity for someone they know in actual life. But some mentioned no such experiences – they could easily distinguish people they'd met and people they hadn't.

I felt curious by this spectrum of responses. Was it just desire that made me see my grandma that day – or some kind of brain malfunction? Studies has found we spend about a quarter-hour of every hour looking at faces – do we just make mistakes sometimes? I was beginning to realize that we can all see the same face but not perceive the same thing.

Understanding the Spectrum of Facial Recognition Abilities

Researchers have developed many assessments to assess the capacity to recall faces. There exists a broad spectrum: at one extreme are superior face rememberers, who recognize faces they have seen only momentarily or a distant past; at the other are people with prosopagnosia, who often have difficulty to identify kin, close friends and even themselves.

Some assessments also capture how skilled someone is at determining if they have not seen a face before. This is where I think I fall short. But researchers "haven't thoroughly investigated this" as much as they've examined the skill to recognize a face, according to cognitive neuroscientists. It does seem that the two abilities use different brain processes; for example, there is proof that superior face rememberers and face-blind individuals do about as well as each other at recognizing new faces, despite their wildly different abilities to recognize old faces.

Completing Face Identification Assessments

I felt curious whether these assessments would offer understanding on why unknown people look familiar. Was I someone who never forgets a face? I often recognize people more than they recognize me, and feel let down – a feeling that researchers say is common for superior face rememberers. But maybe I hyper-recognize faces – to the point that even some new faces look known.

I was sent several facial recognition tests. I completed them, feeling puzzled at times. In one, called the Cambridge Face Memory Test, I had to look at black-and-white photos of a face from different viewpoints, then find it in groups. During another test that told me to pick out celebrities from a mix of photos, many of the faces felt at least familiar, but I couldn't quite place them – reminiscent to my actual experience.

I felt less than confident about my outcome. But after assessment of my performance, I had properly distinguished 96% of the celebrity faces. The finding was that I qualified as a "almost superior face rememberer".

Understanding Incorrect Identification Frequencies

I also excelled in the old/new faces task, which was described as notably useful for assessing someone's recognition for faces. The subject looks at a sequence of 60 grayscale photos, each of a distinct face. Then they look through a string of 120 analogous photos – the original series plus 60 unfamiliar countenances – and specify which were in the original collection. The super-recognizer benchmark is roughly 80%; I recalled 78% of the faces I'd seen. On the other side of the range, people with prosopagnosia correctly guess an average of 57%.

I felt satisfied with my performance, but also surprised. I recalled many of the previously seen countenances, but rarely mistook a unfamiliar countenance for one that I'd seen before. My performance on this measure, called the false alarm rate, was 18%. Average identifiers, exceptional facial identifiers and those with facial agnosia all have a mistaken recognition percentage of about 30% on average. So why was I confusing a stranger's face for my elderly relative's?

Examining Plausible Causes

It was proposed that I possibly possessed some superior face rememberer capabilities. Everyone has a inventory of the faces we know in our recall, but super-recognizers – and probably almost superior rememberers like me – have a fairly substantial and detailed catalogue. We're also likely to differentiate visages – that is, assign qualities to each face, such as approachability or impoliteness. Research suggests that the second aspect helps people to acquire and retain faces to enduring recollection. While distinguishing may help me remember people, it may also deceive me into seeing my grandmother in a woman who has a similar air.

In moreover, it was considered I might be "an engaged facial observer", 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 disposed to notice the unknown person who resembles my grandma. Indeed, one friend who said she doesn't make face identification mistakes confessed she doesn't really look at the people around her.

Examining Excessive Recognition 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 "recognize" strangers. Examining further, I read about a disorder called excessive facial recognition (HFF), in which unfamiliar faces appear familiar. On the surface, this sounded like it could apply to me. But the few of recorded occurrences all occurred after a medical episode such as a epileptic episode or brain attack, unlike the idiosyncrasy that I've been experiencing my whole mature years.

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

Experts have heard from only a small number of people with possible HFF in long durations 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 every face is recognizable, and others, like me, who only undergo it a few times a month.

{Understanding