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Throughout my mid-20s, I observed my grandmother through the window of a café. I felt dumbstruck – she had departed the prior year. I gazed for a short time, then recalled it was impossible to be her.

I'd experienced similar experiences all through my life. Occasionally, I "knew" an individual I didn't know. At times I could quickly determine who the stranger reminded me of – for instance my elderly relative. Other times, a countenance simply had a subtle recognition I couldn't identify.

Examining the Spectrum of Person Recognition Capabilities

Lately, I became curious if different individuals have these peculiar experiences. When I inquired my friends, one commented she regularly sees persons in unexpected places who look familiar. Others at times confuse a unfamiliar individual or celebrity for someone they know in actual life. But some reported completely different responses – they could effortlessly recognize people they'd met and people they hadn't.

I felt intrigued by this spectrum of experiences. Was it just desire that made me see my grandmother that day – or some kind of brain malfunction? Scientific investigation has found we spend about approximately 900 seconds of every hour looking at faces – do we just have inaccuracies sometimes? I was beginning to realize that we can all see the same face but not experience the same thing.

Understanding the Range of Facial Recognition Capacities

Investigators have designed many evaluations to quantify the capacity to recall faces. There exists a wide range: at one end are super-recognizers, 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 recognize relatives, dear acquaintances and even themselves.

Some tests also assess how good someone is at telling if they have not seen a face before. This is where I believe I fall short. But scientists "haven't extensively researched this" as much as they've examined the skill to recall a face, according to neuroscience experts. It does seem that the two abilities use distinct brain mechanisms; for case, there is proof that superior face rememberers and face-blind individuals do about as well as each other at identifying new faces, despite their wildly different abilities to recall old faces.

Taking Face Identification Tests

I felt intrigued whether these evaluations would provide insight on why unknown people look familiar. Was I someone who always remembers a face? I often remember people more than they remember me, and feel disappointed – a emotion that scientists say is common for exceptional facial identifiers. But maybe I over-recognize faces – to the degree that even some new faces look known.

I obtained several person recognition tests. I waded through them, feeling stumped at times. In one, called the memory for faces evaluation, I had to look at grayscale photos of a face from different viewpoints, then find it in groups. During another test that told 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 results. But after analysis of my scores, I had correctly identified 96% of the public figure faces. The conclusion was that I qualified as a "almost superior face rememberer".

Understanding False Alarm Rates

I also did exceptionally in the known/unknown countenances task, which was described as particularly good for measuring someone's recognition for faces. The participant looks at a sequence of 60 grayscale photos, each of a different face. Then they examine a string of 120 similar photos – the first group plus 60 unfamiliar countenances – and specify which were in the original collection. The superior face rememberer threshold is roughly 80%; I recognized 78% of the faces I'd seen. On the other extreme of the continuum, people with facial agnosia properly recognize an average of 57%.

I felt pleased with my result, but also taken aback. I recognized many of the familiar visages, but seldom misidentified a unfamiliar countenance for one that I'd seen before. My result on this indicator, called the false alarm rate, was 18%. Normal recognizers, super-recognizers and face-blind individuals 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?

Examining Possible Explanations

It was proposed that I possibly possessed some exceptional facial identifier abilities. Everyone has a catalogue of the faces we know in our recollection, but super-recognizers – and likely almost superior rememberers like me – have a comparatively extensive and detailed catalogue. We're also possibly to differentiate visages – that is, assign qualities to each face, such as approachability or rudeness. Scientific investigation suggests that the latter helps people to acquire and retain faces to permanent recall. While differentiating may help me recognize people, it may also trick me into seeing my grandma in a woman who has a analogous presence.

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

Examining Hyperfamiliarity for Faces

These assessments helped me understand where I sat on the spectrum. But I wanted to understand more about what is happening in the brain when we "recognize" unknown people. Researching further, I read about a syndrome called hyperfamiliarity for faces (HFF), in which unrecognized faces appear recognizable. Initially, this sounded like it could apply to me. But the handful of reported cases all occurred after a physical event such as a epileptic episode or cerebral accident, 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 face identification problems, including sight abnormalities, like when faces appear to be liquefying. Researchers study many of these people, using instruments like the old/new faces task and the facial recall assessment.

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

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

{Understanding