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Throughout my twenties, I observed my grandmother through the window of a coffee house. I felt dumbstruck – she had departed the previous year. I looked intently for a short time, then recalled it couldn't possibly be her.

I'd experienced similar experiences throughout my life. From time to time, I "identified" someone I had never met. Sometimes I could rapidly determine who the unknown individual resembled – such as my grandma. Other times, a visage simply had a vague familiarity I couldn't recognize.

Investigating the Range of Face Identification Abilities

Lately, I began questioning if other people have these peculiar situations. When I inquired my acquaintances, one mentioned she often sees persons in unexpected places who look familiar. Others at times mistake a stranger or celebrity for someone they know in everyday existence. But some reported completely different responses – they could easily recognize people they'd met and people they hadn't.

I felt intrigued by this spectrum of perceptions. Was it just yearning that made me see my grandmother that day – or some kind of cognitive error? Scientific investigation has found we spend about 14 minutes 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 interpret the same thing.

Grasping the Spectrum of Face Identification Capacities

Scientists have developed many tests to measure the ability to recognize faces. There exists a extensive variety: at one side are super-recognizers, who recognize faces they have seen only briefly or a long time ago; at the other are people with facial agnosia, who often find it challenging to recognize kin, dear acquaintances and even themselves.

Some tests also assess how skilled someone is at determining if they have not seen a face before. This is where I suspect I have limitations. But researchers "haven't thoroughly investigated this" as much as they've looked at the ability to recognize a face, according to brain researchers. It does seem that the two abilities use separate brain functions; for example, there is evidence that superior face rememberers and those with facial agnosia do about as well as each other at discerning new faces, despite their wildly different abilities to recognize old faces.

Completing Facial Recognition Tests

I felt curious whether these tests would offer understanding on why unknown people look recognizable. Was I someone who always remembers a face? I often recognize people more than they recognize me, and feel let down – a sentiment that researchers say is frequent for superior face rememberers. But maybe I excessively identify faces – to the extent that even some new faces look known.

I was sent several face identification tests. I completed them, feeling stumped 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 directed me to pick out public figures from a mix of photos, many of the faces felt at least recognizable, but I couldn't precisely recognize them – similar to my actual experience.

I felt doubtful about my results. But after evaluation of my scores, I had correctly identified 96% of the public figure faces. The finding was that I qualified as a "near-exceptional facial identifier".

Grasping Mistaken Recognition Frequencies

I also performed well in the previously seen/unfamiliar faces task, which was described as especially effective for evaluating someone's recognition for faces. The subject looks at a series of 60 monochrome photos, each of a separate face. Then they examine a series of 120 similar photos – the original series plus 60 unfamiliar countenances – and identify which were in the original collection. The exceptional facial identifier benchmark is roughly 80%; I recalled 78% of the faces I'd seen. On the other extreme of the continuum, people with face blindness accurately identify an average of 57%.

I felt pleased with my score, but also astonished. I recognized many of the familiar visages, but infrequently misidentified a unknown visage for one that I'd seen before. My performance on this metric, called the mistaken recognition percentage, was 18%. Typical rememberers, exceptional facial identifiers and prosopagnosics all have a incorrect identification frequency of about 30% on average. So why was I confusing a stranger's face for my elderly relative's?

Investigating Possible Explanations

It was proposed that I likely possessed some superior face rememberer capabilities. Everyone has a inventory of the faces we know in our recall, but exceptional facial identifiers – and likely borderline straddlers like me – have a relatively large and detailed catalogue. We're also possibly to individuate faces – that is, assign qualities to each face, such as amiability or discourtesy. Scientific investigation suggests that the later element helps people to learn and commit faces to enduring recollection. While differentiating may help me recognize people, it may also mislead me into seeing my elderly relative in a woman who has a analogous presence.

In moreover, it was thought I might be "an engaged facial observer", 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 closely at faces, I am inclined to notice the unfamiliar individual who similar to my grandmother. Indeed, one companion who said she doesn't make face identification mistakes admitted she doesn't really look at the people around her.

Examining Over-familiarity for Faces

These evaluations helped me understand where I stood on the range. But I wanted to understand more about what is happening in the brain when we "know" strangers. Examining further, I read about a syndrome called over-familiarity with countenances (HFF), in which unfamiliar faces appear known. Initially, this sounded like it could apply to me. But the few of recorded occurrences all happened after a medical episode such as a convulsion or brain attack, unlike the quirk that I've been experiencing my whole grown-up existence.

Through scientific platforms, experts have heard from about 24,000 prosopagnosics, as well as people with all kinds of facial recognition problems, including visual distortions, like when faces appear to be melting. Researchers study many of these people, using instruments like the known/unknown countenances task and the Cambridge Face Memory Test.

Experts have heard from only a few of people with potential HFF in extended periods of study.

"The occurrence rate is quite low," one expert said of HFF. However, they hypothesized that there may be a spectrum, with some people who think each countenance is recognizable, and others, like me, who only undergo it a few times a month.

{Understanding