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Throughout my mid-20s, I observed my grandma through the pane of a café. I felt dumbstruck – she had died the prior year. I gazed for a short time, then reminded myself it couldn't possibly be her.

I'd had comparable situations all through my life. From time to time, I "identified" an individual I was unacquainted with. Sometimes I could quickly determine who the unknown individual reminded me of – for instance my elderly relative. Other times, a countenance simply had a vague familiarity I couldn't identify.

Examining the Variety of Face Identification Experiences

Recently, I became curious if other people have these peculiar experiences. When I inquired my companions, one said she regularly sees people in random places who look familiar. Others at times mistake a unknown person or famous person for someone they know in real life. But some mentioned completely different responses – they could readily recognize people they'd met and people they hadn't.

I felt intrigued by this range of perceptions. Was it just desire that made me see my grandmother that day – or some kind of mental glitch? Research 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 perceive the same thing.

Grasping the Spectrum of Facial Recognition Abilities

Researchers have developed many evaluations to quantify the skill to recall faces. There exists a extensive variety: at one extreme are exceptional facial identifiers, who remember faces they have seen only for a short time or a distant past; at the other are people with prosopagnosia, who often struggle to identify relatives, close friends and even themselves.

Some evaluations also capture how proficient someone is at telling if they have not seen a face before. This is where I suspect I have limitations. But scientists "just haven't dug into this" as much as they've examined the ability to recognize a face, according to brain researchers. It does seem that the two capabilities use separate brain processes; for case, there is proof that superior face rememberers and prosopagnosics do about as well as each other at discerning new faces, despite their vastly dissimilar abilities to recall old faces.

Undergoing Person Recognition Tests

I felt intrigued whether these tests would offer understanding on why unknown people look recognizable. Was I someone who constantly recalls a face? I often recognize people more than they recall me, and feel let down – a feeling that scientists say is frequent for superior face rememberers. But maybe I excessively identify faces – to the point that even some new faces look recognizable.

I obtained several face identification tests. I completed them, feeling puzzled at times. In one, called the memory for faces evaluation, I had to look at black-and-white photos of a face from three angles, then find it in groups. During another test that told me to pick out famous people from a mix of photos, many of the faces felt at least known, but I couldn't exactly identify them – similar to my everyday experience.

I felt uncertain about my outcome. But after assessment of my scores, I had properly distinguished 96% of the public figure faces. The conclusion was that I qualified as a "near-exceptional facial identifier".

Grasping False Alarm Rates

I also did exceptionally in the old/new faces task, which was described as notably useful for evaluating someone's recall for faces. The test-taker looks at a sequence of 60 grayscale photos, each of a distinct face. Then they review a sequence of 120 analogous photos – the first group plus 60 new faces – and specify which were in the initial group. The superior face rememberer benchmark is roughly 80%; I recognized 78% of the faces I'd seen. On the other end of the range, people with facial agnosia accurately identify an average of 57%.

I felt satisfied with my score, but also taken aback. I recognized many of the previously seen countenances, but infrequently misidentified a unfamiliar countenance for one that I'd seen before. My performance on this measure, called the incorrect identification frequency, was 18%. Normal recognizers, 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 grandma's?

Investigating Plausible Reasons

It was theorized that I likely possessed some superior face rememberer capacities. Everyone has a catalogue of the faces we know in our recollection, but exceptional facial identifiers – and probably borderline straddlers like me – have a comparatively extensive and high-resolution catalogue. We're also likely to distinguish countenances – that is, assign qualities to each face, such as amiability or discourtesy. Scientific investigation suggests that the second aspect helps people to develop and store faces to enduring recollection. While differentiating may help me recognize people, it may also deceive me into seeing my grandmother in a woman who has a analogous presence.

In moreover, it was considered I might be "a attentive countenance examiner", meaning I pay a considerable notice to faces. Others may have more false alarm moments, thinking they recognize someone they don't know. But because I tend to look carefully at faces, I am inclined to notice the unfamiliar individual who looks like my grandma. Indeed, one companion who said she doesn't make facial recognition mistakes acknowledged she doesn't really look at the people around her.

Researching Over-familiarity for Faces

These tests helped me understand where I positioned on the spectrum. But I wanted to understand more about what is happening in the brain when we "identify" strangers. Researching further, I read about a disorder called excessive facial recognition (HFF), in which unknown faces appear known. On the surface, this sounded like it could pertain to me. But the small number of reported cases all happened after a physical event such as a epileptic episode or brain attack, unlike the quirk that I've been noticing my whole mature years.

Through investigative websites, experts have heard from about 24,000 face-blind individuals, as well as people with all kinds of facial recognition problems, including visual distortions, like when faces appear to be dissolving. Researchers study many of these people, using tools like the known/unknown countenances task and the facial recall assessment.

Experts have heard from only a few of people with potential HFF in long durations of research.

"The occurrence rate is quite low," one expert said of HFF. However, they speculated that there may be a range, with some people who think each countenance is known, and others, like me, who only experience it a several occasions a month.

{Understanding