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In my mid-20s, I observed my grandma through the glass of a coffee shop. I felt dumbstruck – she had passed away the year before. I looked intently for a brief period, then reminded myself it couldn't possibly be her.

I'd experienced analogous experiences all through my life. Periodically, I "recognized" a person I was unacquainted with. Occasionally I could rapidly determine who the stranger reminded me of – like my grandma. On other occasions, a face simply had a subtle recognition I couldn't identify.

Investigating the Variety of Face Identification Experiences

Lately, I began questioning if different individuals have these unusual experiences. When I asked my companions, one said she regularly sees persons in random places who look recognizable. Others at times mistake a unfamiliar individual or celebrity for someone they know in real life. But some reported no such experiences – they could easily identify people they'd met and people they hadn't.

I felt curious by this diversity of experiences. Was it just longing that made me see my grandma that day – or some kind of brain malfunction? Scientific investigation has found we spend about 14 minutes 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 perceive the same thing.

Grasping the Continuum of Face Identification Abilities

Investigators have designed many tests to assess the capacity to recall faces. There exists a broad spectrum: at one side are super-recognizers, who remember faces they have seen only briefly or a distant past; at the other are people with face blindness, who often find it challenging to identify kin, dear acquaintances and even themselves.

Some assessments also assess how proficient someone is at telling if they have not seen a face before. This is where I believe I fall short. But scientists "just haven't dug into this" as much as they've looked at the capacity to recall a face, according to neuroscience experts. It does seem that the two capabilities use separate brain functions; for instance, there is evidence that super-recognizers and prosopagnosics do about as well as each other at recognizing new faces, despite their extremely distinct abilities to remember old faces.

Completing Facial Recognition Tests

I felt interested whether these tests would provide insight on why unfamiliar individuals look familiar. Was I someone who never forgets a face? I often recognize people more than they remember me, and feel disheartened – a emotion that scientists say is frequent for superior face rememberers. But maybe I over-recognize faces – to the extent that even some new faces look known.

I received several facial recognition tests. I worked through them, feeling confused at times. In one, called the Cambridge Face Memory Test, I had to look at black-and-white photos of a face from different viewpoints, then find it in groups. During another test that instructed me to pick out famous people from a mix of photos, many of the faces felt at least recognizable, but I couldn't exactly identify them – reminiscent to my real-life experience.

I felt less than confident about my results. But after evaluation of my results, I had correctly identified 96% of the famous person faces. The conclusion was that I qualified as a "almost superior face rememberer".

Grasping Mistaken Recognition Rates

I also performed well in the known/unknown countenances task, which was described as especially effective for evaluating someone's recognition for faces. The participant looks at a sequence of 60 black-and-white photos, each of a separate face. Then they look through a sequence of 120 comparable photos – the initial collection plus 60 unfamiliar countenances – and specify which were in the first set. The superior face rememberer threshold is roughly 80%; I recalled 78% of the faces I'd seen. On the other extreme of the range, people with face blindness accurately identify an average of 57%.

I felt pleased with my performance, but also astonished. I remembered many of the previously seen countenances, but infrequently mistook a unknown visage for one that I'd seen before. My performance on this indicator, called the mistaken recognition percentage, 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 unfamiliar individual's face for my elderly relative's?

Investigating Plausible Reasons

It was proposed that I likely possessed some exceptional facial identifier abilities. Everyone has a catalogue of the faces we know in our recollection, but super-recognizers – and possibly almost superior rememberers like me – have a comparatively extensive and detailed catalogue. We're also possibly to distinguish countenances – that is, assign characteristics to each face, such as approachability or discourtesy. Studies suggests that the second aspect helps people to acquire and commit faces to permanent recall. While differentiating may help me recall people, it may also mislead 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 know someone they don't know. But because I tend to look closely at faces, I am prone to notice the unknown person who similar to my elderly relative. Indeed, one friend who said she doesn't make face identification 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 continuum. But I wanted to understand more about what is happening in the brain when we "identify" unfamiliar individuals. Examining further, I read about a condition called hyperfamiliarity for faces (HFF), in which unfamiliar faces appear known. Initially, this sounded like it could relate to me. But the few of documented instances all took place after a health incident such as a seizure or brain attack, unlike the peculiarity that I've been experiencing my whole adult life.

Through scientific platforms, experts have heard from about 24,000 face-blind individuals, as well as people with all kinds of facial recognition problems, including perceptual alterations, like when faces appear to be melting. Researchers study many of these people, using tools like the known/unknown countenances task and the memory for faces evaluation.

Experts have heard from only a few of people with possible HFF in extended periods of investigation.

"The frequency is quite low," one expert said of HFF. However, they hypothesized that there may be a range, with some people who think every face is known, and others, like me, who only undergo it a few times a month.

{Understanding