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Throughout my young adulthood, I noticed my grandma through the pane of a coffee shop. I felt astonished – she had died the year before. I gazed for a moment, then remembered it couldn't be her.

I'd had comparable situations throughout my life. Occasionally, I "recognized" an individual I was unacquainted with. At times I could quickly identify who the unfamiliar person reminded me of – such as my elderly relative. On other occasions, a countenance simply had a indistinct knowingness I couldn't recognize.

Exploring the Spectrum of Facial Recognition Abilities

Lately, I started wondering if other people have these peculiar encounters. When I asked my friends, one commented she frequently sees people in unpredictable places who look known. Others at times misidentify a unfamiliar individual or famous person for someone they know in real life. But some reported no such experiences – they could readily distinguish people they'd met and people they hadn't.

I felt curious by this spectrum of perceptions. Was it just longing that made me see my grandmother that day – or some kind of cognitive error? Research has found we spend about approximately 900 seconds of every hour looking at faces – do we just have inaccuracies sometimes? I was commencing to comprehend that we can all see the same face but not interpret the same thing.

Grasping the Continuum of Facial Recognition Skills

Researchers have developed many evaluations to assess the ability to recall faces. There exists a broad spectrum: at one end are superior face rememberers, who recall faces they have seen only for a short time or a considerable time past; at the other are people with prosopagnosia, who often find it challenging to identify relatives, dear acquaintances 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 believe I am deficient. But experts "haven't thoroughly investigated this" as much as they've examined the skill to recall a face, according to cognitive neuroscientists. It does seem that the two capabilities use different brain processes; for example, there is evidence that superior face rememberers and prosopagnosics do about as well as each other at recognizing new faces, despite their extremely distinct abilities to recall old faces.

Completing Face Identification Tests

I felt intrigued whether these tests would offer understanding on why strangers look recognizable. Was I someone who never forgets a face? I often recognize people more than they remember me, and feel disheartened – a emotion that researchers say is common for super-recognizers. But maybe I over-recognize faces – to the extent that even some new faces look recognizable.

I obtained several face identification tests. I waded through them, feeling confused 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 arrays. During another test that told me to pick out famous people from a mix of photos, many of the faces felt at least recognizable, but I couldn't quite place them – similar to my real-life experience.

I felt less than confident about my results. But after assessment of my results, I had correctly identified 96% of the celebrity faces. The determination was that I qualified as a "almost superior face rememberer".

Grasping Incorrect Identification Percentages

I also excelled in the known/unknown countenances task, which was described as particularly good for measuring someone's recall for faces. The test-taker looks at a collection of 60 grayscale photos, each of a different face. Then they examine a series of 120 analogous photos – the first group plus 60 unfamiliar countenances – and indicate which were in the first set. The superior face rememberer cutoff is roughly 80%; I recognized 78% of the faces I'd seen. On the other extreme of the spectrum, people with facial agnosia correctly guess an average of 57%.

I felt satisfied with my result, but also taken aback. I recognized many of the old faces, but infrequently confused a unfamiliar countenance for one that I'd seen before. My score on this indicator, called the false alarm rate, was 18%. Typical rememberers, super-recognizers and those with facial agnosia all have a incorrect identification frequency of about 30% on average. So why was I mistaking a stranger's face for my elderly relative's?

Examining Possible Explanations

It was theorized that I possibly possessed some super-recognizer capabilities. Everyone has a catalogue of the faces we know in our memory, but super-recognizers – and possibly almost superior rememberers like me – have a fairly substantial and high-resolution catalogue. We're also likely to individuate faces – that is, ascribe traits to each face, such as amiability or discourtesy. Studies suggests that the second aspect helps people to develop and store faces to permanent recall. While individuating may help me recall people, it may also mislead me into seeing my grandmother in a woman who has a similar air.

In addition, 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 identify someone they don't know. But because I tend to look attentively at faces, I am prone to notice the stranger who similar to my grandmother. Indeed, one companion who said she doesn't make person recognition mistakes admitted she doesn't really look at the people around her.

Researching Over-familiarity for Faces

These tests helped me understand where I sat on the range. But I wanted to understand more about what is happening in the brain when we "recognize" unknown people. Investigating further, I read about a condition called over-familiarity with countenances (HFF), in which unknown faces appear known. Initially, this sounded like it could relate to me. But the handful of documented instances all occurred after a health incident such as a epileptic episode or stroke, unlike the quirk that I've been noticing my whole mature years.

Through investigative websites, experts have heard from about 24,000 face-blind individuals, as well as people with all kinds of facial recognition difficulties, including perceptual alterations, like when faces appear to be melting. Researchers study many of these people, using methods like the known/unknown countenances task and the memory for faces evaluation.

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

"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 known, and others, like me, who only experience it a several occasions a month.

{Understanding