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Throughout my young adulthood, I observed my elderly relative through the glass of a coffee shop. I felt dumbstruck – she had died the previous year. I stared for a moment, then remembered it couldn't be her.

I'd experienced similar situations all through my life. From time to time, I "knew" someone I didn't know. At times I could rapidly determine who the stranger reminded me of – for instance my elderly relative. On other occasions, a face simply had a vague familiarity I couldn't recognize.

Exploring the Range of Facial Recognition Experiences

In recent times, I became curious if others have these odd encounters. When I questioned my companions, one commented she regularly sees individuals in unpredictable places who look known. Others at times confuse a stranger or celebrity for someone they know in everyday existence. But some described completely different responses – they could easily distinguish people they'd met and people they hadn't.

I felt intrigued by this spectrum of responses. Was it just desire that made me see my elderly relative that day – or some kind of cognitive error? Scientific investigation has found we spend about 14 minutes of every hour looking at faces – do we just err sometimes? I was commencing to comprehend that we can all see the same face but not interpret the same thing.

Grasping the Spectrum of Face Identification Capacities

Scientists have designed many evaluations to assess the skill to recall faces. There exists a wide range: at one extreme are superior face rememberers, who remember faces they have seen only momentarily or a distant past; at the other are people with facial agnosia, who often struggle to recognize relatives, close friends and even themselves.

Some tests also measure how proficient someone is at determining if they have not seen a face before. This is where I believe I am deficient. But researchers "haven't extensively researched this" as much as they've studied the capacity to recognize a face, according to cognitive neuroscientists. It does seem that the two abilities use distinct brain functions; for case, there is proof that superior face rememberers and face-blind individuals do about as well as each other at recognizing new faces, despite their vastly dissimilar abilities to recognize old faces.

Undergoing Facial Recognition Evaluations

I felt intrigued whether these tests would provide insight on why unknown people look recognizable. Was I someone who always remembers a face? I often recognize people more than they recognize me, and feel disappointed – a emotion that experts say is common for exceptional facial identifiers. But maybe I excessively identify faces – to the point that even some new faces look familiar.

I received several person recognition tests. I completed them, feeling stumped at times. In one, called the facial recall assessment, 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 public figures from a mix of photos, many of the faces felt at least familiar, but I couldn't quite place them – similar to my real-life experience.

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

Comprehending False Alarm Percentages

I also did exceptionally in the previously seen/unfamiliar faces task, which was described as notably useful for assessing someone's recall for faces. The subject looks at a sequence of 60 black-and-white photos, each of a separate face. Then they examine a series of 120 analogous photos – the original series plus 60 new faces – and identify 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 extreme of the range, people with facial agnosia accurately identify an average of 57%.

I felt pleased with my performance, but also surprised. I recalled many of the previously seen countenances, but rarely confused a unfamiliar countenance for one that I'd seen before. My result on this metric, called the mistaken recognition percentage, was 18%. Typical rememberers, super-recognizers and those with facial agnosia all have a incorrect identification frequency of about 30% on average. So why was I mistaking a unknown person's face for my grandma's?

Examining Possible Explanations

It was suggested that I likely possessed some super-recognizer capabilities. Everyone has a inventory of the faces we know in our memory, but super-recognizers – and likely borderline straddlers like me – have a comparatively extensive and precise catalogue. We're also likely to individuate faces – that is, attribute qualities to each face, such as friendliness or impoliteness. Studies suggests that the second aspect helps people to learn and retain faces to permanent recall. While individuating may help me recall people, it may also deceive me into seeing my grandma in a woman who has a analogous presence.

In moreover, it was believed I might be "a attentive countenance examiner", 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 closely at faces, I am inclined to notice the unfamiliar individual who resembles my elderly relative. Indeed, one acquaintance who said she doesn't make face identification mistakes acknowledged she doesn't really look at the people around her.

Researching Excessive Recognition for Faces

These tests helped me understand where I positioned on the continuum. But I wanted to understand more about what is happening in the brain when we "recognize" unknown people. Examining further, I read about a disorder called hyperfamiliarity for faces (HFF), in which unfamiliar faces appear familiar. On the surface, this sounded like it could pertain to me. But the small number of recorded occurrences all happened after a health incident such as a seizure or brain attack, unlike the idiosyncrasy that I've been experiencing my whole adult life.

Through investigative websites, experts have heard from about 24,000 face-blind individuals, as well as people with all kinds of facial recognition difficulties, including sight abnormalities, like when faces appear to be dissolving. Researchers study many of these people, using instruments like the old/new faces task and the memory for faces evaluation.

Experts have heard from only a few of people with suspected HFF in extended periods of research.

"The occurrence rate is quite low," one expert said of HFF. However, they theorized that there may be a range, with some people who think all visages is recognizable, and others, like me, who only experience it a few times a month.

{Understanding