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During my twenties, I spotted my grandmother through the pane of a café. I felt astonished – she had passed away the previous year. I gazed for a brief period, then recalled it couldn't be her.

I'd had comparable experiences all through my life. Occasionally, I "identified" a person I had never met. Occasionally I could rapidly pinpoint who the unknown individual resembled – for instance my grandmother. On other occasions, a face simply had a indistinct knowingness I couldn't identify.

Exploring the Variety of Facial Recognition Capabilities

In recent times, I became curious if other people have these unusual experiences. When I asked my companions, one mentioned she frequently sees persons in unexpected places who look recognizable. Others sometimes mistake a unknown person or public figure for someone they know in real life. But some mentioned nothing of the kind – they could effortlessly recognize people they'd met and people they hadn't.

I felt fascinated by this spectrum of perceptions. Was it just longing that made me see my grandma that day – or some kind of brain malfunction? Studies has found we spend about approximately 900 seconds 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 perceive the same thing.

Comprehending the Continuum of Face Identification Abilities

Investigators have created many evaluations to quantify the skill to recognize faces. There exists a broad spectrum: at one extreme 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 find it challenging to recognize relatives, close friends and even themselves.

Some evaluations also measure how good someone is at determining if they have not seen a face before. This is where I think I have limitations. But scientists "haven't extensively researched this" as much as they've studied the capacity to recall a face, according to brain researchers. It does seem that the two capabilities use distinct brain mechanisms; for example, there is proof that exceptional facial identifiers and face-blind individuals do about as well as each other at discerning new faces, despite their extremely distinct abilities to remember old faces.

Undergoing Face Identification Assessments

I felt curious whether these assessments would provide insight on why unfamiliar individuals look known. Was I someone who never forgets a face? I often recall people more than they remember me, and feel disheartened – a feeling that scientists say is common for super-recognizers. But maybe I excessively identify faces – to the degree 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 different viewpoints, then find it in groups. During another test that directed me to pick out famous people 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 results. But after assessment of my results, I had correctly identified 96% of the famous person faces. The conclusion was that I qualified as a "borderline super-recognizer".

Understanding False Alarm Rates

I also did exceptionally in the known/unknown countenances task, which was described as especially effective for evaluating someone's memory for faces. The participant looks at a collection of 60 monochrome photos, each of a distinct face. Then they review a sequence of 120 similar photos – the initial collection plus 60 unknown visages – and specify which were in the initial group. The exceptional facial identifier 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 content with my result, but also taken aback. I recalled many of the familiar visages, but infrequently misidentified a unknown visage for one that I'd seen before. My performance on this measure, called the false alarm rate, was 18%. Normal recognizers, super-recognizers and prosopagnosics all have a false alarm rate of about 30% on average. So why was I confusing a unknown person's face for my grandma's?

Investigating Possible Causes

It was suggested that I probably possessed some exceptional facial identifier capacities. Everyone has a inventory of the faces we know in our recollection, but exceptional facial identifiers – and probably almost superior rememberers like me – have a fairly substantial and high-resolution catalogue. We're also probably to individuate faces – that is, assign traits to each face, such as amiability or discourtesy. Studies suggests that the later element helps people to acquire and retain faces to enduring recollection. While differentiating may help me remember people, it may also trick me into seeing my elderly relative in a woman who has a comparable demeanor.

In moreover, it was thought I might be "an active face perceiver", meaning I pay a significant focus to faces. Others may have more false alarm moments, thinking they know someone they don't know. But because I tend to look carefully at faces, I am disposed to notice the stranger who similar to my grandma. Indeed, one acquaintance who said she doesn't make facial recognition mistakes acknowledged she doesn't really look at the people around her.

Investigating Over-familiarity for Faces

These evaluations helped me understand where I sat on the continuum. But I wanted to understand more about what is happening in the brain when we "know" strangers. Investigating further, I read about a condition called over-familiarity with countenances (HFF), in which unrecognized faces appear familiar. Superficially, this sounded like it could relate to me. But the few of reported cases all happened after a physical event such as a seizure or brain attack, unlike the quirk that I've been noticing my whole grown-up existence.

Through scientific platforms, experts have heard from about 24,000 prosopagnosics, as well as people with all kinds of facial recognition challenges, including visual distortions, like when faces appear to be melting. Researchers study many of these people, using methods like the known/unknown countenances task and the memory for faces evaluation.

Experts have heard from only a small number of people with possible HFF in extended periods of investigation.

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

{Understanding