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During my twenties, I noticed my grandmother 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 encountered similar experiences during my life. Occasionally, I "knew" someone I didn't know. At times I could promptly identify who the stranger looked like – for instance my grandma. Other times, a countenance simply had a subtle recognition I couldn't recognize.

Examining the Variety of Person Recognition Capabilities

Recently, I started wondering if other people have these unusual encounters. When I inquired my friends, one mentioned she often sees persons in random places who look recognizable. Others sometimes confuse a stranger or public figure for someone they know in real life. But some reported no such experiences – they could effortlessly recognize people they'd met and people they hadn't.

I felt fascinated by this spectrum of perceptions. Was it just yearning that made me see my grandmother that day – or some kind of brain malfunction? Studies 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 Range of Person Recognition Capacities

Scientists have designed many tests to measure the skill to recall faces. There exists a broad spectrum: at one end are exceptional facial identifiers, who remember faces they have seen only momentarily or a distant past; at the other are people with face blindness, who often find it challenging to know kin, close friends and even themselves.

Some evaluations also measure how proficient someone is at determining if they have not seen a face before. This is where I believe I fall short. But experts "just haven't dug into this" as much as they've studied the capacity to recognize a face, according to cognitive neuroscientists. It does seem that the two capabilities use different brain mechanisms; for example, there is proof that super-recognizers 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.

Taking Facial Recognition Assessments

I felt curious whether these evaluations would offer understanding on why unknown people look recognizable. Was I someone who always remembers a face? I often recall people more than they remember me, and feel disappointed – a feeling that researchers say is common for super-recognizers. But maybe I over-recognize faces – to the point that even some new faces look familiar.

I obtained several face identification tests. I completed them, feeling puzzled at times. In one, called the facial recall assessment, I had to look at grayscale photos of a face from three angles, then find it in groups. During another test that directed me to pick out famous people from a mix of photos, many of the faces felt at least known, but I couldn't quite place them – similar to my actual experience.

I felt doubtful about my outcome. But after evaluation of my results, I had accurately recognized 96% of the public figure faces. The determination was that I qualified as a "borderline super-recognizer".

Understanding Mistaken Recognition Percentages

I also did exceptionally in the previously seen/unfamiliar faces task, which was described as particularly good for measuring someone's memory for faces. The participant looks at a collection of 60 black-and-white photos, each of a distinct face. Then they look through a series of 120 analogous photos – the first group plus 60 unknown visages – and identify which were in the first set. The exceptional facial identifier threshold is roughly 80%; I remembered 78% of the faces I'd seen. On the other extreme of the spectrum, people with face blindness properly recognize an average of 57%.

I felt pleased with my performance, but also astonished. I remembered many of the familiar visages, but infrequently confused a new face for one that I'd seen before. My performance on this measure, called the false alarm rate, was 18%. Average identifiers, super-recognizers and face-blind individuals all have a mistaken recognition percentage of about 30% on average. So why was I confusing a unknown person's face for my elderly relative's?

Investigating Plausible Explanations

It was theorized that I likely possessed some exceptional facial identifier capacities. Everyone has a inventory of the faces we know in our recall, but superior face rememberers – and probably almost superior rememberers like me – have a relatively large and precise catalogue. We're also possibly to distinguish countenances – that is, assign traits to each face, such as amiability or impoliteness. Studies suggests that the later element helps people to develop and commit faces to permanent recall. While distinguishing may help me remember people, it may also deceive me into seeing my elderly relative in a woman who has a similar air.

In furthermore, it was believed I might be "an engaged facial observer", meaning I pay a considerable notice to faces. Others may have more incorrect identification moments, thinking they know someone they don't know. But because I tend to look closely at faces, I am prone 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.

Investigating Over-familiarity for Faces

These tests 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" unfamiliar individuals. Researching further, I read about a syndrome called over-familiarity with countenances (HFF), in which unrecognized faces appear known. Superficially, this sounded like it could relate to me. But the small number of recorded occurrences all took place after a medical episode such as a convulsion or stroke, unlike the peculiarity that I've been experiencing my whole grown-up existence.

Through scientific platforms, experts have heard from about 24,000 those with facial agnosia, as well as people with all kinds of facial recognition challenges, including perceptual alterations, like when faces appear to be dissolving. 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 small number of people with suspected HFF in many years of research.

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

{Understanding