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In my mid-20s, I observed my elderly relative through the glass of a café. I felt astonished – she had departed the year before. I stared for a short time, then recalled it couldn't be her.

I'd encountered similar experiences throughout my life. Occasionally, I "knew" someone I didn't know. Occasionally I could quickly identify who the unknown individual reminded me of – like my grandmother. In other instances, a face simply had a vague familiarity I couldn't recognize.

Exploring the Spectrum of Facial Recognition Abilities

In recent times, I started wondering if other people have these odd situations. When I asked my friends, one commented she regularly sees individuals in unexpected places who look known. Others occasionally misidentify a unfamiliar individual or public figure for someone they know in actual life. But some mentioned no such experiences – they could effortlessly recognize people they'd met and people they hadn't.

I felt fascinated by this diversity of perceptions. Was it just desire that made me see my elderly relative that day – or some kind of brain malfunction? Studies has found we spend about 14 minutes of every hour looking at faces – do we just make mistakes sometimes? I was starting to understand that we can all see the same face but not experience the same thing.

Grasping the Range of Person Recognition Skills

Researchers have created many assessments to measure the skill to remember faces. There exists a wide range: at one side are superior face rememberers, who recall faces they have seen only for a short time or a distant past; at the other are people with face blindness, who often find it challenging to identify family, dear acquaintances and even themselves.

Some assessments also assess how good someone is at recognizing if they have not seen a face before. This is where I suspect I am deficient. But experts "haven't thoroughly investigated this" as much as they've studied the skill to recognize a face, according to brain researchers. It does seem that the two capabilities use distinct brain processes; for case, there is indication that superior face rememberers and face-blind individuals do about as well as each other at identifying new faces, despite their wildly different abilities to recognize old faces.

Undergoing Person Recognition Assessments

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

I obtained several person recognition tests. I waded through them, feeling confused at times. In one, called the memory for faces evaluation, I had to look at grayscale photos of a face from three angles, then find it in lineups. During another test that directed me to pick out celebrities from a mix of photos, many of the faces felt at least known, but I couldn't precisely recognize them – reminiscent to my actual experience.

I felt uncertain about my results. But after assessment of my results, I had properly distinguished 96% of the public figure faces. The conclusion was that I qualified as a "near-exceptional facial identifier".

Understanding Incorrect Identification Rates

I also performed well in the known/unknown countenances task, which was described as especially effective for assessing someone's recall for faces. The test-taker looks at a sequence of 60 black-and-white photos, each of a distinct face. Then they examine a series of 120 analogous photos – the initial collection plus 60 unfamiliar countenances – and indicate which were in the first set. The super-recognizer threshold is roughly 80%; I recalled 78% of the faces I'd seen. On the other side of the range, people with prosopagnosia accurately identify an average of 57%.

I felt pleased with my performance, but also astonished. I recalled many of the old faces, but infrequently confused a new face for one that I'd seen before. My performance on this indicator, called the mistaken recognition percentage, was 18%. Average identifiers, superior face rememberers and prosopagnosics all have a incorrect identification frequency of about 30% on average. So why was I misidentifying a unknown person's face for my elderly relative's?

Investigating Plausible Reasons

It was theorized that I likely possessed some superior face rememberer capacities. Everyone has a database of the faces we know in our recall, but superior face rememberers – and likely borderline straddlers like me – have a relatively large and detailed catalogue. We're also likely to distinguish countenances – that is, assign traits to each face, such as amiability or impoliteness. Research suggests that the later element helps people to acquire and retain faces to permanent recall. While individuating may help me recognize people, it may also deceive me into seeing my elderly relative in a woman who has a analogous presence.

In moreover, it was believed I might be "a attentive countenance examiner", meaning I pay a lot of attention to faces. Others may have more mistaken recognition moments, thinking they recognize someone they don't know. But because I tend to look closely at faces, I am inclined to notice the stranger who looks like my grandma. Indeed, one acquaintance who said she doesn't make face identification mistakes acknowledged she doesn't really look at the people around her.

Examining Excessive Recognition for Faces

These tests helped me understand where I stood on the spectrum. But I wanted to understand more about what is happening in the brain when we "know" unknown people. Investigating further, I read about a disorder called hyperfamiliarity for faces (HFF), in which unknown faces appear known. Superficially, this sounded like it could pertain to me. But the small number of documented instances all happened after a physical event such as a epileptic episode or stroke, unlike the peculiarity that I've been observing 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 challenges, including visual distortions, like when faces appear to be dissolving. Researchers study many of these people, using methods like the old/new faces task and the Cambridge Face Memory Test.

Experts have heard from only a small number of people with possible HFF in long durations of investigation.

"The occurrence rate is quite low," one expert said of HFF. However, they theorized that there may be a range, with some people who think every face is recognizable, and others, like me, who only experience it a multiple instances a month.

{Understanding