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During my twenties, I observed my elderly relative through the glass of a café. I felt dumbstruck – she had died the prior year. I gazed for a short time, then reminded myself it couldn't be her.

I'd experienced similar occurrences all through my life. Periodically, I "recognized" an individual I was unacquainted with. Occasionally I could rapidly pinpoint who the stranger reminded me of – for instance my grandmother. In other instances, a countenance simply had a subtle recognition I couldn't recognize.

Exploring the Variety of Facial Recognition Capabilities

Lately, I started wondering if others have these peculiar encounters. When I questioned my friends, one commented she frequently sees people in unexpected places who look recognizable. Others occasionally confuse a unknown person or famous person for someone they know in actual life. But some described nothing of the kind – they could easily recognize people they'd met and people they hadn't.

I felt intrigued by this range of perceptions. Was it just longing that made me see my grandma that day – or some kind of mental glitch? Research has found we spend about approximately 900 seconds 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 interpret the same thing.

Comprehending the Spectrum of Person Recognition Abilities

Researchers have created many evaluations to measure the skill to recognize faces. There exists a broad spectrum: at one end are exceptional facial identifiers, who remember faces they have seen only briefly or a distant past; at the other are people with prosopagnosia, who often have difficulty to know kin, intimate companions and even themselves.

Some assessments also measure how good someone is at determining if they have not seen a face before. This is where I think I fall short. But scientists "haven't extensively researched this" as much as they've looked at the ability to remember a face, according to neuroscience experts. It does seem that the two abilities use distinct brain functions; for case, there is evidence that super-recognizers and prosopagnosics do about as well as each other at recognizing new faces, despite their vastly dissimilar abilities to recall old faces.

Taking Person Recognition Tests

I felt intrigued whether these evaluations would offer understanding on why strangers look recognizable. Was I someone who always remembers a face? I often recall people more than they recall me, and feel disheartened – a sentiment that scientists say is common for superior face rememberers. But maybe I excessively identify faces – to the degree that even some new faces look recognizable.

I obtained several facial recognition tests. I completed them, feeling confused at times. In one, called the memory for faces evaluation, I had to look at grayscale photos of a face from three angles, then find it in groups. During another test that directed 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 – reminiscent to my real-life experience.

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

Comprehending Incorrect Identification Rates

I also did exceptionally in the old/new faces task, which was described as especially effective for evaluating someone's recognition for faces. The subject looks at a sequence of 60 monochrome photos, each of a different face. Then they review a sequence of 120 comparable photos – the initial collection plus 60 unfamiliar countenances – and indicate which were in the initial group. The super-recognizer cutoff is roughly 80%; I recognized 78% of the faces I'd seen. On the other extreme of the range, people with prosopagnosia accurately identify an average of 57%.

I felt pleased with my performance, but also surprised. I recognized many of the familiar visages, but seldom confused a new face for one that I'd seen before. My score on this measure, called the false alarm rate, was 18%. Average identifiers, exceptional facial identifiers and face-blind individuals all have a false alarm rate of about 30% on average. So why was I mistaking a unknown person's face for my elderly relative's?

Examining Potential Reasons

It was suggested that I likely possessed some super-recognizer abilities. Everyone has a inventory of the faces we know in our recollection, but superior face rememberers – and likely near-exceptional individuals like me – have a fairly substantial and high-resolution catalogue. We're also likely to differentiate visages – that is, ascribe qualities to each face, such as amiability or rudeness. Research suggests that the latter helps people to learn and store faces to enduring recollection. While distinguishing may help me recognize people, it may also deceive me into seeing my grandmother in a woman who has a similar air.

In moreover, it was thought I might be "an engaged facial observer", meaning I pay a significant focus to faces. Others may have more mistaken recognition moments, thinking they identify someone they don't know. But because I tend to look closely at faces, I am disposed to notice the unfamiliar individual who looks like my grandmother. Indeed, one friend who said she doesn't make person recognition mistakes confessed she doesn't really look at the people around her.

Investigating Over-familiarity for Faces

These evaluations 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" unknown people. Researching further, I read about a disorder called excessive facial recognition (HFF), in which unknown faces appear recognizable. Superficially, this sounded like it could relate to me. But the small number of documented instances all occurred after a medical episode such as a convulsion or brain attack, unlike the peculiarity that I've been experiencing my whole grown-up existence.

Through research sites, experts have heard from about 24,000 face-blind individuals, as well as people with all kinds of person recognition 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 Cambridge Face Memory Test.

Experts have heard from only a few of people with potential HFF in many years of investigation.

"The frequency is quite low," one expert said of HFF. However, they hypothesized 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