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Throughout my young adulthood, I spotted my elderly relative through the window of a café. I felt astonished – she had departed the prior year. I gazed for a moment, then reminded myself it couldn't possibly be her.

I'd had analogous situations all through my life. Periodically, I "knew" someone I was unacquainted with. Sometimes I could quickly identify who the stranger reminded me of – for instance my elderly relative. On other occasions, a countenance simply had a vague familiarity I couldn't identify.

Examining the Spectrum of Facial Recognition Experiences

Lately, I became curious if others have these peculiar encounters. When I questioned my companions, one commented she often sees people in unexpected places who look familiar. Others at times confuse a stranger or celebrity for someone they know in actual life. But some described nothing of the kind – they could readily recognize people they'd met and people they hadn't.

I felt fascinated by this diversity of perceptions. Was it just longing that made me see my grandmother that day – or some kind of mental glitch? Studies has found we spend about approximately 900 seconds of every hour looking at faces – do we just make mistakes sometimes? I was commencing to comprehend that we can all see the same face but not perceive the same thing.

Grasping the Spectrum of Facial Recognition Skills

Researchers have created many tests to quantify the capacity to recall faces. There exists a broad spectrum: at one end are super-recognizers, who recognize faces they have seen only for a short time or a long time ago; at the other are people with prosopagnosia, who often find it challenging to recognize kin, intimate companions and even themselves.

Some assessments also assess how proficient someone is at recognizing if they have not seen a face before. This is where I believe I am deficient. But researchers "haven't extensively researched this" as much as they've studied the skill to recall a face, according to brain researchers. It does seem that the two skills use different brain processes; for instance, there is proof that exceptional facial identifiers and face-blind individuals do about as well as each other at identifying new faces, despite their wildly different abilities to remember old faces.

Completing Face Identification Tests

I felt interested whether these assessments would shed some light on why unknown people look familiar. Was I someone who always remembers a face? I often remember people more than they recall me, and feel disappointed – a sentiment that researchers say is frequent for superior face rememberers. But maybe I over-recognize faces – to the extent that even some new faces look recognizable.

I received several facial recognition tests. I worked through them, feeling puzzled at times. In one, called the Cambridge Face Memory Test, I had to look at black-and-white photos of a face from multiple perspectives, 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 precisely recognize them – similar to my everyday experience.

I felt uncertain about my outcome. But after evaluation of my scores, I had accurately recognized 96% of the celebrity faces. The finding was that I qualified as a "borderline super-recognizer".

Understanding Incorrect Identification Rates

I also did exceptionally in the old/new faces task, which was described as particularly good for measuring someone's recognition for faces. The participant looks at a series of 60 black-and-white photos, each of a separate face. Then they review a sequence of 120 comparable photos – the initial collection plus 60 new faces – and specify which were in the initial group. The super-recognizer threshold is roughly 80%; I recalled 78% of the faces I'd seen. On the other extreme of the continuum, people with prosopagnosia accurately identify an average of 57%.

I felt pleased with my performance, but also astonished. I recognized many of the previously seen countenances, but infrequently mistook a unfamiliar countenance for one that I'd seen before. My result on this measure, called the mistaken recognition percentage, was 18%. Average identifiers, exceptional facial identifiers and prosopagnosics all have a incorrect identification frequency of about 30% on average. So why was I confusing a unfamiliar individual's face for my grandma's?

Examining Potential Reasons

It was suggested that I probably possessed some super-recognizer capacities. Everyone has a database of the faces we know in our recall, but super-recognizers – and probably borderline straddlers like me – have a fairly substantial and detailed catalogue. We're also probably to differentiate visages – that is, attribute traits to each face, such as approachability or impoliteness. Studies suggests that the later element helps people to acquire and store faces to long-term memory. While individuating may help me recall people, it may also trick me into seeing my grandma in a woman who has a analogous presence.

In furthermore, it was thought I might be "an engaged facial observer", meaning I pay a considerable notice to faces. Others may have more mistaken recognition moments, thinking they know someone they don't know. But because I tend to look carefully at faces, I am inclined to notice the unknown person who looks like my elderly relative. Indeed, one acquaintance who said she doesn't make person recognition mistakes admitted she doesn't really look at the people around her.

Examining Over-familiarity for Faces

These assessments helped me understand where I stood on the range. But I wanted to understand more about what is happening in the brain when we "identify" unfamiliar individuals. Investigating further, I read about a condition called over-familiarity with countenances (HFF), in which unrecognized faces appear known. On the surface, this sounded like it could pertain to me. But the small number of recorded occurrences all took place after a medical episode such as a epileptic episode or stroke, unlike the peculiarity that I've been noticing 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 previously seen/unfamiliar faces task and the Cambridge Face Memory Test.

Experts have heard from only a few of people with possible HFF in long durations of study.

"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 undergo it a multiple instances a month.

{Understanding