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Throughout my twenties, I observed my elderly relative through the window of a coffee house. I felt dumbstruck – she had departed the year before. I gazed for a short time, then reminded myself it was impossible to be her.

I'd experienced similar occurrences throughout my life. Periodically, I "identified" a person I didn't know. At times I could quickly pinpoint who the unknown individual looked like – for instance my elderly relative. In other instances, a face simply had a subtle recognition I couldn't place.

Examining the Spectrum of Facial Recognition Experiences

Lately, I began questioning if others have these odd experiences. When I inquired my acquaintances, one commented she regularly sees people in unpredictable places who look familiar. Others at times misidentify a unknown person or public figure for someone they know in everyday existence. But some reported nothing of the kind – they could easily distinguish people they'd met and people they hadn't.

I felt intrigued by this diversity of perceptions. Was it just longing that made me see my elderly relative that day – or some kind of mental glitch? Scientific investigation has found we spend about a quarter-hour of every hour looking at faces – do we just make mistakes sometimes? I was beginning to realize that we can all see the same face but not experience the same thing.

Comprehending the Continuum of Person Recognition Capacities

Investigators have designed many evaluations to measure the capacity to recognize faces. There exists a broad spectrum: at one end are super-recognizers, who recall faces they have seen only briefly or a considerable time past; at the other are people with facial agnosia, who often struggle to identify relatives, dear acquaintances and even themselves.

Some tests also measure how skilled someone is at determining if they have not seen a face before. This is where I suspect I have limitations. But experts "haven't extensively researched this" as much as they've examined the ability to recall a face, according to cognitive neuroscientists. It does seem that the two skills use separate brain functions; for instance, there is evidence that super-recognizers and prosopagnosics do about as well as each other at discerning new faces, despite their wildly different abilities to recall old faces.

Undergoing Face Identification Assessments

I felt curious whether these evaluations would provide insight on why unfamiliar individuals look recognizable. Was I someone who always remembers a face? I often remember people more than they recall me, and feel disheartened – a feeling that scientists say is frequent for exceptional facial identifiers. But maybe I over-recognize faces – to the degree that even some new faces look familiar.

I was sent several facial recognition tests. I completed them, feeling puzzled at times. In one, called the Cambridge Face Memory Test, I had to look at monochrome 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 known, but I couldn't precisely recognize them – similar to my everyday experience.

I felt uncertain about my results. But after assessment of my performance, I had accurately recognized 96% of the famous person faces. The determination was that I qualified as a "almost superior face rememberer".

Grasping Incorrect Identification Percentages

I also performed well in the previously seen/unfamiliar faces task, which was described as especially effective for assessing someone's recall for faces. The participant looks at a sequence of 60 black-and-white photos, each of a distinct face. Then they review a series of 120 analogous photos – the original series plus 60 new faces – and indicate which were in the original collection. The superior face rememberer benchmark is roughly 80%; I remembered 78% of the faces I'd seen. On the other end of the spectrum, people with face blindness correctly guess an average of 57%.

I felt pleased with my performance, but also taken aback. I recalled many of the familiar visages, but seldom confused a unfamiliar countenance for one that I'd seen before. My score on this indicator, called the false alarm rate, was 18%. Normal recognizers, super-recognizers and prosopagnosics all have a incorrect identification frequency of about 30% on average. So why was I mistaking a stranger's face for my grandmother's?

Examining Possible Reasons

It was suggested that I probably possessed some super-recognizer capabilities. Everyone has a database of the faces we know in our memory, but super-recognizers – and probably near-exceptional individuals like me – have a fairly substantial and precise catalogue. We're also probably to distinguish countenances – that is, ascribe characteristics to each face, such as approachability or rudeness. Studies suggests that the later element helps people to develop and store faces to enduring recollection. While individuating may help me recall people, it may also deceive me into seeing my grandmother in a woman who has a similar air.

In addition, it was thought I might be "an active face perceiver", meaning I pay a lot of attention to faces. Others may have more false alarm moments, thinking they identify someone they don't know. But because I tend to look carefully at faces, I am inclined to notice the unfamiliar individual who similar to my grandmother. Indeed, one friend who said she doesn't make person recognition mistakes confessed she doesn't really look at the people around her.

Investigating Hyperfamiliarity for Faces

These evaluations helped me understand where I sat on the spectrum. But I wanted to understand more about what is happening in the brain when we "know" strangers. Examining further, I read about a condition called over-familiarity with countenances (HFF), in which unfamiliar faces appear known. On the surface, this sounded like it could relate to me. But the few of reported cases all happened after a medical episode such as a convulsion or stroke, unlike the quirk that I've been noticing my whole grown-up existence.

Through investigative websites, experts have heard from about 24,000 prosopagnosics, as well as people with all kinds of person recognition difficulties, including visual distortions, like when faces appear to be liquefying. Researchers study many of these people, using tools like the old/new faces task and the Cambridge Face Memory Test.

Experts have heard from only a few of people with suspected HFF in extended periods of research.

"The prevalence is quite low," one expert said of HFF. However, they theorized that there may be a range, with some people who think all visages is known, and others, like me, who only experience it a multiple instances a month.

{Understanding