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Throughout my young adulthood, I observed my elderly relative through the window of a coffee shop. I felt astonished – she had passed away the prior year. I looked intently for a brief period, then recalled it couldn't be her.

I'd encountered comparable situations throughout my life. Occasionally, I "knew" someone I was unacquainted with. At times I could quickly identify who the stranger reminded me of – for instance my grandmother. Other times, a face simply had a subtle recognition I couldn't place.

Examining the Range of Facial Recognition Abilities

Lately, I started wondering if other people have these peculiar experiences. When I inquired my acquaintances, one mentioned she often sees people in random places who look known. Others at times misidentify a stranger or celebrity for someone they know in actual life. But some described no such experiences – they could effortlessly recognize people they'd met and people they hadn't.

I felt intrigued by this diversity of perceptions. Was it just desire that made me see my elderly relative that day – or some kind of brain malfunction? Research has found we spend about a quarter-hour of every hour looking at faces – do we just err sometimes? I was starting to understand that we can all see the same face but not interpret the same thing.

Comprehending the Range of Facial Recognition Abilities

Researchers have developed many assessments to measure the capacity to remember faces. There exists a broad spectrum: at one side are super-recognizers, who recognize faces they have seen only briefly or a considerable time past; at the other are people with face blindness, who often struggle to identify family, close friends and even themselves.

Some tests also assess how proficient someone is at recognizing if they have not seen a face before. This is where I think I have limitations. But experts "haven't extensively researched this" as much as they've looked at the skill to recall a face, according to brain researchers. It does seem that the two skills use distinct brain processes; for case, there is evidence that super-recognizers and face-blind individuals do about as well as each other at identifying new faces, despite their extremely distinct abilities to remember old faces.

Undergoing Facial Recognition Tests

I felt curious whether these assessments would offer understanding on why unfamiliar individuals look familiar. Was I someone who constantly recalls a face? I often recognize people more than they remember me, and feel let down – a feeling that scientists say is frequent for super-recognizers. But maybe I hyper-recognize faces – to the point that even some new faces look familiar.

I obtained several face identification tests. I worked through them, feeling stumped at times. In one, called the memory for faces evaluation, I had to look at monochrome photos of a face from different viewpoints, then find it in arrays. During another test that instructed me to pick out famous people from a mix of photos, many of the faces felt at least familiar, but I couldn't precisely recognize them – comparable to my actual experience.

I felt doubtful about my performance. But after analysis of my results, I had accurately recognized 96% of the famous person faces. The conclusion was that I qualified as a "borderline super-recognizer".

Grasping False Alarm Percentages

I also excelled in the previously seen/unfamiliar faces task, which was described as particularly good for evaluating someone's memory for faces. The participant looks at a sequence of 60 grayscale photos, each of a distinct face. Then they examine a string of 120 comparable photos – the first group plus 60 unknown visages – and specify which were in the initial group. The exceptional facial identifier benchmark is roughly 80%; I remembered 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 content with my performance, but also astonished. I recalled many of the familiar visages, but seldom confused a new face for one that I'd seen before. My result on this indicator, called the incorrect identification frequency, was 18%. Typical rememberers, exceptional facial identifiers and face-blind individuals all have a incorrect identification frequency of about 30% on average. So why was I confusing a stranger's face for my grandmother's?

Investigating Possible Reasons

It was proposed that I probably possessed some exceptional facial identifier abilities. Everyone has a inventory of the faces we know in our memory, but exceptional facial identifiers – and likely borderline straddlers like me – have a comparatively extensive and precise catalogue. We're also possibly to distinguish countenances – that is, ascribe characteristics to each face, such as approachability or rudeness. Studies suggests that the later element helps people to acquire and store faces to enduring recollection. While individuating may help me remember people, it may also mislead me into seeing my elderly relative in a woman who has a comparable demeanor.

In furthermore, it was thought I might be "an active face perceiver", meaning I pay a considerable notice to faces. Others may have more mistaken recognition moments, thinking they identify someone they don't know. But because I tend to look carefully at faces, I am disposed to notice the unfamiliar individual who similar to my elderly relative. Indeed, one companion who said she doesn't make person recognition mistakes admitted she doesn't really look at the people around her.

Researching Over-familiarity for Faces

These assessments helped me understand where I positioned on the continuum. But I wanted to understand more about what is happening in the brain when we "know" strangers. Researching further, I read about a condition called over-familiarity with countenances (HFF), in which unrecognized faces appear known. Initially, this sounded like it could apply to me. But the small number of reported cases all occurred after a health incident such as a seizure or cerebral accident, unlike the peculiarity that I've been experiencing my whole adult life.

Through investigative websites, experts have heard from about 24,000 those with facial agnosia, as well as people with all kinds of person recognition difficulties, including visual distortions, 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 handful of people with potential HFF in many years of research.

"The prevalence is quite low," one expert said of HFF. However, they speculated that there may be a continuum, with some people who think every face is familiar, and others, like me, who only encounter it a multiple instances a month.

{Understanding