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During my twenties, I spotted my grandmother through the window of a café. I felt astonished – she had passed away the previous year. I stared for a short time, then remembered it couldn't possibly be her.

I'd encountered similar situations during my life. From time to time, I "identified" a person I was unacquainted with. Occasionally I could quickly identify who the stranger looked like – like my elderly relative. In other instances, a face simply had a subtle recognition I couldn't identify.

Investigating the Variety of Face Identification Abilities

In recent times, I began questioning if others have these peculiar situations. When I questioned my companions, one mentioned she regularly sees people in random places who look familiar. Others at times mistake a unknown person or famous person for someone they know in actual life. But some mentioned no such experiences – they could effortlessly identify people they'd met and people they hadn't.

I felt fascinated by this diversity of responses. Was it just desire that made me see my elderly relative that day – or some kind of mental glitch? Scientific investigation 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 interpret the same thing.

Understanding the Range of Person Recognition Skills

Researchers have designed many assessments to quantify the capacity to remember faces. There exists a broad spectrum: at one side are super-recognizers, who recall faces they have seen only briefly or a long time ago; at the other are people with facial agnosia, who often struggle to recognize kin, close friends and even themselves.

Some assessments also assess how proficient someone is at determining if they have not seen a face before. This is where I believe I fall short. But researchers "haven't thoroughly investigated this" as much as they've looked at the skill to remember a face, according to brain researchers. It does seem that the two capabilities use separate brain functions; for case, there is indication that superior face rememberers and face-blind individuals do about as well as each other at recognizing new faces, despite their extremely distinct abilities to recognize old faces.

Completing Face Identification Evaluations

I felt intrigued whether these assessments would provide insight on why strangers look familiar. Was I someone who always remembers a face? I often recognize people more than they recall me, and feel disheartened – a sentiment that researchers say is typical for exceptional facial identifiers. But maybe I excessively identify faces – to the extent that even some new faces look familiar.

I obtained several facial recognition tests. I worked through them, feeling confused at times. In one, called the memory for faces evaluation, I had to look at black-and-white photos of a face from multiple perspectives, then find it in lineups. During another test that told me to pick out public figures from a mix of photos, many of the faces felt at least recognizable, but I couldn't exactly identify them – similar to my everyday experience.

I felt doubtful about my performance. But after assessment of my performance, I had properly distinguished 96% of the public figure faces. The determination was that I qualified as a "near-exceptional facial identifier".

Understanding Incorrect Identification Percentages

I also excelled in the previously seen/unfamiliar faces task, which was described as notably useful for assessing someone's memory for faces. The participant looks at a collection of 60 monochrome photos, each of a separate face. Then they review a series of 120 analogous photos – the initial collection plus 60 unknown visages – and specify which were in the initial group. The super-recognizer cutoff is roughly 80%; I recalled 78% of the faces I'd seen. On the other side of the continuum, people with facial agnosia properly recognize an average of 57%.

I felt pleased with my performance, but also taken aback. I recalled many of the old faces, but seldom confused a unfamiliar countenance for one that I'd seen before. My performance on this indicator, called the false alarm rate, was 18%. Normal recognizers, super-recognizers and those with facial agnosia 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 Causes

It was suggested that I probably possessed some superior face rememberer capabilities. Everyone has a inventory of the faces we know in our recollection, but super-recognizers – and likely almost superior rememberers like me – have a comparatively extensive and high-resolution catalogue. We're also likely to distinguish countenances – that is, ascribe characteristics to each face, such as approachability or rudeness. Studies suggests that the later element helps people to learn and commit faces to enduring recollection. While differentiating may help me recognize people, it may also deceive me into seeing my grandmother in a woman who has a analogous presence.

In moreover, it was believed I might be "a attentive countenance examiner", meaning I pay a lot of attention to faces. Others may have more false alarm moments, thinking they know someone they don't know. But because I tend to look closely at faces, I am disposed to notice the unfamiliar individual who resembles my grandmother. Indeed, one acquaintance who said she doesn't make face identification mistakes admitted she doesn't really look at the people around her.

Investigating Hyperfamiliarity 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 "know" unfamiliar individuals. Investigating further, I read about a syndrome called hyperfamiliarity for faces (HFF), in which unrecognized faces appear familiar. On the surface, this sounded like it could relate to me. But the handful of reported cases all took place after a health incident such as a epileptic episode or cerebral accident, unlike the peculiarity that I've been observing my whole mature years.

Through investigative websites, experts have heard from about 24,000 face-blind individuals, as well as people with all kinds of person recognition problems, including visual distortions, like when faces appear to be liquefying. Researchers study many of these people, using instruments like the old/new faces task and the facial recall assessment.

Experts have heard from only a handful of people with potential HFF in extended periods of study.

"The frequency 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 encounter it a few times a month.

{Understanding