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Throughout my twenties, I spotted my grandma through the window of a coffee house. I felt stunned – she had departed the previous year. I gazed for a brief period, then remembered it couldn't be her.

I'd experienced comparable situations all through my life. Periodically, I "knew" someone I was unacquainted with. At times I could rapidly identify who the unknown individual looked like – such as my grandmother. Other times, a visage simply had a subtle recognition I couldn't recognize.

Exploring the Range of Facial Recognition Capabilities

Lately, I started wondering if others have these odd experiences. When I questioned my friends, one mentioned she often sees persons in unexpected places who look familiar. Others occasionally misidentify a stranger or public figure for someone they know in everyday existence. But some described nothing of the kind – they could easily identify 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 elderly relative that day – or some kind of brain malfunction? Scientific investigation has found we spend about 14 minutes of every hour looking at faces – do we just make mistakes sometimes? I was starting to understand that we can all see the same face but not experience the same thing.

Grasping the Spectrum of Face Identification Skills

Scientists have designed many evaluations to quantify the ability to recognize faces. There exists a extensive variety: at one extreme are superior face rememberers, who remember faces they have seen only for a short time or a distant past; at the other are people with face blindness, who often struggle to identify relatives, intimate companions 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 think I am deficient. But scientists "haven't extensively researched this" as much as they've studied the ability to recognize a face, according to neuroscience experts. It does seem that the two capabilities use distinct brain functions; for instance, there is indication that super-recognizers and face-blind individuals do about as well as each other at recognizing new faces, despite their wildly different abilities to remember old faces.

Undergoing Face Identification Evaluations

I felt curious whether these assessments would provide insight on why unknown people look familiar. Was I someone who constantly recalls a face? I often remember people more than they recognize me, and feel disheartened – a sentiment that scientists say is common for superior face rememberers. But maybe I hyper-recognize faces – to the extent that even some new faces look familiar.

I obtained several facial recognition tests. I worked through them, feeling puzzled at times. In one, called the facial recall assessment, I had to look at monochrome photos of a face from three angles, then find it in arrays. During another test that directed me to pick out famous people from a mix of photos, many of the faces felt at least known, but I couldn't exactly identify them – comparable to my real-life experience.

I felt less than confident about my results. But after analysis of my results, I had correctly identified 96% of the celebrity faces. The conclusion was that I qualified as a "near-exceptional facial identifier".

Comprehending Incorrect Identification Frequencies

I also did exceptionally in the known/unknown countenances task, which was described as particularly good for assessing someone's recall for faces. The test-taker looks at a collection of 60 black-and-white photos, each of a separate face. Then they look through a series of 120 analogous photos – the initial collection plus 60 unknown visages – and indicate which were in the first set. The super-recognizer benchmark is roughly 80%; I recognized 78% of the faces I'd seen. On the other extreme of the continuum, people with facial agnosia accurately identify an average of 57%.

I felt content with my performance, but also surprised. I remembered many of the familiar visages, but rarely misidentified a new face for one that I'd seen before. My score on this metric, called the incorrect identification frequency, was 18%. Typical rememberers, exceptional facial identifiers and those with facial agnosia all have a incorrect identification frequency of about 30% on average. So why was I misidentifying a stranger's face for my grandma's?

Investigating Plausible Reasons

It was theorized that I probably possessed some superior face rememberer capabilities. Everyone has a catalogue of the faces we know in our recall, but superior face rememberers – and possibly borderline straddlers like me – have a comparatively extensive and precise catalogue. We're also likely to differentiate visages – that is, ascribe characteristics to each face, such as amiability or discourtesy. Research suggests that the later element helps people to acquire and store faces to long-term memory. While differentiating may help me recognize people, it may also trick me into seeing my grandmother in a woman who has a comparable demeanor.

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

Examining Hyperfamiliarity for Faces

These assessments helped me understand where I positioned on the range. But I wanted to understand more about what is happening in the brain when we "know" strangers. Examining further, I read about a disorder called excessive facial recognition (HFF), in which unknown faces appear known. On the surface, this sounded like it could relate to me. But the few of reported cases all took place after a medical episode such as a seizure or brain attack, unlike the peculiarity that I've been noticing my whole adult life.

Through investigative websites, experts have heard from about 24,000 prosopagnosics, as well as people with all kinds of face identification problems, including perceptual alterations, like when faces appear to be dissolving. Researchers study many of these people, using methods like the known/unknown countenances task and the Cambridge Face Memory Test.

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

"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 few times a month.

{Understanding