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In my young adulthood, I spotted my grandma through the window of a coffee shop. I felt astonished – she had died the prior year. I stared for a moment, then remembered it couldn't possibly be her.

I'd had comparable experiences all through my life. Periodically, I "identified" someone I didn't know. Occasionally I could promptly determine who the stranger resembled – for instance my grandmother. Other times, a countenance simply had a subtle recognition I couldn't recognize.

Exploring the Spectrum of Face Identification Abilities

In recent times, I became curious if other people have these odd experiences. When I asked my companions, one said she frequently sees persons in unexpected places who look familiar. Others occasionally misidentify a unknown person or famous person for someone they know in everyday existence. But some described nothing of the kind – they could readily identify people they'd met and people they hadn't.

I felt curious by this spectrum of responses. Was it just desire that made me see my grandma that day – or some kind of cognitive error? Scientific investigation has found we spend about a quarter-hour 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 Continuum of Person Recognition Skills

Researchers have designed many assessments to measure the ability to recall faces. There exists a wide range: at one extreme are super-recognizers, who remember faces they have seen only momentarily or a long time ago; at the other are people with face blindness, who often struggle to recognize relatives, intimate companions and even themselves.

Some evaluations also capture how skilled someone is at determining if they have not seen a face before. This is where I believe 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 neuroscience experts. It does seem that the two skills use distinct brain mechanisms; for example, there is indication that superior face rememberers and prosopagnosics do about as well as each other at recognizing new faces, despite their wildly different abilities to recall old faces.

Completing Facial Recognition Assessments

I felt intrigued whether these evaluations would provide insight on why strangers look known. Was I someone who never forgets a face? I often recognize people more than they remember me, and feel let down – a feeling that scientists say is typical for super-recognizers. But maybe I over-recognize faces – to the extent that even some new faces look known.

I obtained several face identification tests. I worked through them, feeling puzzled at times. In one, called the memory for faces evaluation, I had to look at monochrome photos of a face from three angles, then find it in lineups. 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 exactly identify them – reminiscent to my real-life experience.

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

Grasping False Alarm Rates

I also did exceptionally in the previously seen/unfamiliar faces task, which was described as particularly good for measuring someone's recognition for faces. The participant looks at a series of 60 grayscale photos, each of a distinct face. Then they look through a sequence of 120 analogous photos – the first group 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 end of the continuum, people with facial agnosia correctly guess an average of 57%.

I felt pleased with my performance, but also taken aback. I recognized many of the previously seen countenances, but infrequently mistook a unfamiliar countenance for one that I'd seen before. My score on this measure, called the mistaken recognition percentage, was 18%. Average identifiers, exceptional facial identifiers and prosopagnosics all have a incorrect identification frequency of about 30% on average. So why was I misidentifying a stranger's face for my elderly relative's?

Investigating Potential Explanations

It was proposed that I likely possessed some superior face rememberer capabilities. Everyone has a database of the faces we know in our recollection, but exceptional facial identifiers – and possibly almost superior rememberers like me – have a comparatively extensive and precise catalogue. We're also probably to distinguish countenances – that is, assign qualities to each face, such as approachability or discourtesy. Research suggests that the later element helps people to develop and commit faces to permanent recall. While individuating may help me recognize people, it may also mislead me into seeing my elderly relative in a woman who has a comparable demeanor.

In moreover, it was considered 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 attentively at faces, I am disposed to notice the stranger who resembles my elderly relative. Indeed, one acquaintance who said she doesn't make person recognition mistakes acknowledged she doesn't really look at the people around her.

Examining Over-familiarity 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 "identify" strangers. Investigating further, I read about a syndrome called excessive facial recognition (HFF), in which unrecognized faces appear known. On the surface, this sounded like it could apply to me. But the few of recorded occurrences all happened after a physical event such as a seizure or cerebral accident, unlike the idiosyncrasy that I've been experiencing my whole mature years.

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 visual distortions, like when faces appear to be liquefying. Researchers study many of these people, using tools like the previously seen/unfamiliar faces task and the memory for faces evaluation.

Experts have heard from only a handful of people with suspected HFF in extended periods of study.

"The occurrence rate is quite low," one expert said of HFF. However, they theorized that there may be a spectrum, with some people who think all visages is familiar, and others, like me, who only encounter it a several occasions a month.

{Understanding