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In my twenties, I spotted my elderly relative through the glass of a coffee shop. I felt stunned – she had passed away the prior year. I looked intently for a brief period, then reminded myself it was impossible to be her.

I'd had comparable occurrences all through my life. From time to time, I "knew" someone I was unacquainted with. Occasionally I could promptly identify who the stranger reminded me of – like my grandmother. On other occasions, a countenance simply had a vague familiarity I couldn't place.

Examining the Range of Face Identification Experiences

Recently, I began questioning if other people have these unusual encounters. When I questioned my acquaintances, one mentioned she frequently sees people in unexpected places who look known. Others sometimes confuse a stranger or public figure for someone they know in everyday existence. But some mentioned completely different responses – they could easily identify people they'd met and people they hadn't.

I felt intrigued by this range of responses. Was it just longing that made me see my elderly relative 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 commencing to comprehend that we can all see the same face but not perceive the same thing.

Understanding the Range of Face Identification Capacities

Scientists have designed many evaluations to assess the capacity to recall faces. There exists a wide range: at one extreme are superior face rememberers, who recall faces they have seen only briefly or a long time ago; at the other are people with face blindness, who often find it challenging to recognize family, dear acquaintances and even themselves.

Some assessments also capture how skilled someone is at telling 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 looked at the capacity to recognize a face, according to neuroscience experts. It does seem that the two capabilities use different brain functions; for example, there is evidence that superior face rememberers and face-blind individuals do about as well as each other at recognizing new faces, despite their extremely distinct abilities to recognize old faces.

Completing Person Recognition Tests

I felt interested whether these evaluations would shed some light on why strangers look known. Was I someone who constantly recalls a face? I often recall people more than they recognize me, and feel disappointed – a emotion that scientists say is frequent for exceptional facial identifiers. But maybe I excessively identify faces – to the degree that even some new faces look recognizable.

I was sent several person recognition tests. I worked 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 three angles, then find it in groups. During another test that told me to pick out public figures from a mix of photos, many of the faces felt at least recognizable, but I couldn't exactly identify them – reminiscent to my actual experience.

I felt less than confident about my outcome. But after analysis of my scores, I had accurately recognized 96% of the celebrity faces. The determination was that I qualified as a "almost superior face rememberer".

Grasping Incorrect Identification Percentages

I also performed well in the old/new faces task, which was described as notably useful for measuring someone's memory for faces. The subject looks at a series of 60 monochrome photos, each of a different face. Then they examine a string of 120 comparable photos – the original series plus 60 unknown visages – and identify which were in the original collection. The super-recognizer cutoff is roughly 80%; I recognized 78% of the faces I'd seen. On the other end of the continuum, people with face blindness properly recognize an average of 57%.

I felt pleased with my performance, but also surprised. I recognized many of the previously seen countenances, but rarely misidentified a unknown visage for one that I'd seen before. My result on this measure, called the incorrect identification frequency, was 18%. Normal recognizers, super-recognizers and face-blind individuals all have a mistaken recognition percentage of about 30% on average. So why was I confusing a stranger's face for my grandmother's?

Examining Potential Explanations

It was theorized that I likely possessed some superior face rememberer capabilities. Everyone has a database of the faces we know in our memory, but exceptional facial identifiers – and likely borderline straddlers like me – have a comparatively extensive and precise catalogue. We're also likely to differentiate visages – that is, ascribe characteristics to each face, such as approachability or impoliteness. Scientific investigation suggests that the second aspect helps people to acquire and commit faces to permanent recall. While distinguishing may help me recognize people, it may also deceive me into seeing my grandmother in a woman who has a similar air.

In addition, it was thought I might be "a attentive countenance examiner", meaning I pay a significant focus 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 disposed to notice the unknown person who similar to my elderly relative. Indeed, one acquaintance who said she doesn't make person recognition mistakes acknowledged she doesn't really look at the people around her.

Researching Hyperfamiliarity for Faces

These evaluations helped me understand where I sat on the range. But I wanted to understand more about what is happening in the brain when we "know" strangers. Investigating further, I read about a disorder called excessive facial recognition (HFF), in which unrecognized faces appear recognizable. On the surface, this sounded like it could relate to me. But the handful of recorded occurrences all occurred after a physical event such as a epileptic episode or brain attack, unlike the idiosyncrasy 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 problems, including perceptual alterations, like when faces appear to be dissolving. 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 potential HFF in extended periods of study.

"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 several occasions a month.

{Understanding