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During my mid-20s, I noticed my elderly relative through the glass of a coffee shop. I felt astonished – she had died the previous year. I gazed for a short time, then reminded myself it couldn't possibly be her.

I'd encountered analogous occurrences all through my life. Occasionally, I "knew" a person I didn't know. Occasionally I could promptly determine who the unknown individual resembled – such as my elderly relative. In other instances, a face simply had a vague familiarity I couldn't identify.

Exploring the Variety of Facial Recognition Capabilities

Lately, I became curious if different individuals have these unusual situations. When I asked my acquaintances, one mentioned she often sees people in unexpected places who look recognizable. Others at times mistake a unfamiliar individual or celebrity for someone they know in real life. But some described no such experiences – they could effortlessly identify people they'd met and people they hadn't.

I felt intrigued by this spectrum of experiences. Was it just desire that made me see my grandmother that day – or some kind of brain malfunction? Scientific investigation has found we spend about a quarter-hour of every hour looking at faces – do we just err sometimes? I was commencing to comprehend that we can all see the same face but not interpret the same thing.

Grasping the Spectrum of Face Identification Abilities

Investigators have designed many assessments to quantify the skill to recall faces. There exists a broad spectrum: at one side are superior face rememberers, who recall faces they have seen only momentarily or a considerable time past; at the other are people with facial agnosia, who often struggle to recognize relatives, close friends and even themselves.

Some tests also measure how good someone is at recognizing 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 capacity to remember a face, according to brain researchers. It does seem that the two skills use separate brain mechanisms; for instance, there is evidence that exceptional facial identifiers and those with facial agnosia do about as well as each other at recognizing new faces, despite their extremely distinct abilities to remember old faces.

Taking Facial Recognition Tests

I felt curious whether these evaluations would offer understanding on why strangers look familiar. Was I someone who always remembers a face? I often remember people more than they remember me, and feel disheartened – a emotion that experts say is frequent for superior face rememberers. But maybe I hyper-recognize faces – to the degree that even some new faces look recognizable.

I obtained several face identification tests. I waded through them, feeling puzzled at times. In one, called the Cambridge Face Memory Test, I had to look at grayscale photos of a face from multiple perspectives, then find it in arrays. 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 exactly identify them – reminiscent to my actual experience.

I felt less than confident about my outcome. But after assessment of my results, I had accurately recognized 96% of the public figure faces. The finding was that I qualified as a "borderline super-recognizer".

Grasping Incorrect Identification Percentages

I also did exceptionally in the known/unknown countenances task, which was described as notably useful for measuring someone's recall for faces. The participant looks at a collection of 60 black-and-white photos, each of a different face. Then they review a sequence of 120 similar photos – the original series plus 60 new faces – and specify which were in the first set. The super-recognizer cutoff is roughly 80%; I recalled 78% of the faces I'd seen. On the other extreme of the continuum, people with facial agnosia correctly guess an average of 57%.

I felt satisfied with my score, but also astonished. I recognized many of the old faces, but rarely confused a unknown visage for one that I'd seen before. My performance on this indicator, called the false alarm rate, was 18%. Average identifiers, super-recognizers and prosopagnosics all have a false alarm rate of about 30% on average. So why was I mistaking a unknown person's face for my grandmother's?

Examining Possible Explanations

It was theorized that I possibly possessed some super-recognizer capacities. Everyone has a database of the faces we know in our recall, but exceptional facial identifiers – and likely borderline straddlers like me – have a comparatively extensive and precise catalogue. We're also possibly to individuate faces – that is, attribute qualities to each face, such as approachability or discourtesy. Studies suggests that the latter helps people to learn and retain faces to enduring recollection. While differentiating may help me recognize people, it may also trick me into seeing my elderly relative in a woman who has a comparable demeanor.

In moreover, it was believed I might be "a attentive countenance examiner", meaning I pay a significant focus to faces. Others may have more incorrect identification moments, thinking they recognize someone they don't know. But because I tend to look closely at faces, I am disposed to notice the unfamiliar individual who resembles my elderly relative. Indeed, one acquaintance who said she doesn't make facial recognition mistakes confessed she doesn't really look at the people around her.

Investigating Hyperfamiliarity for Faces

These tests helped me understand where I sat on the continuum. But I wanted to understand more about what is happening in the brain when we "identify" strangers. Examining further, I read about a disorder called over-familiarity with countenances (HFF), in which unknown faces appear known. Superficially, this sounded like it could relate to me. But the small number of reported cases all took place after a health incident such as a convulsion or brain attack, unlike the quirk that I've been noticing my whole adult life.

Through investigative websites, experts have heard from about 24,000 prosopagnosics, as well as people with all kinds of face identification problems, including sight abnormalities, 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 handful of people with suspected HFF in many years of study.

"The prevalence is quite low," one expert said of HFF. However, they speculated that there may be a range, with some people who think all visages is recognizable, and others, like me, who only undergo it a several occasions a month.

{Understanding