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During my twenties, I noticed my grandmother through the glass of a coffee house. I felt astonished – she had died the prior year. I stared for a short time, then recalled it couldn't possibly be her.

I'd had similar occurrences all through my life. Periodically, I "knew" a person I had never met. Occasionally I could quickly identify who the unfamiliar person reminded me of – like my grandma. Other times, a visage simply had a indistinct knowingness I couldn't recognize.

Investigating the Variety of Person Recognition Experiences

Lately, I began questioning if different individuals have these peculiar situations. When I questioned my companions, one mentioned she frequently sees individuals in unpredictable places who look known. Others sometimes misidentify a unfamiliar individual or famous person for someone they know in everyday existence. But some reported nothing of the kind – they could readily recognize people they'd met and people they hadn't.

I felt fascinated by this diversity of responses. Was it just desire that made me see my grandma that day – or some kind of brain malfunction? Scientific investigation 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.

Comprehending the Continuum of Face Identification Capacities

Researchers have developed many assessments to quantify the capacity to recognize faces. There exists a broad spectrum: at one end are super-recognizers, who recall faces they have seen only for a short time or a long time ago; at the other are people with prosopagnosia, who often struggle to identify kin, close friends and even themselves.

Some assessments also assess how skilled someone is at telling if they have not seen a face before. This is where I think I have limitations. But researchers "haven't extensively researched this" as much as they've looked at the ability to remember a face, according to cognitive neuroscientists. It does seem that the two abilities use separate brain mechanisms; for example, there is indication that exceptional facial identifiers and prosopagnosics do about as well as each other at recognizing new faces, despite their wildly different abilities to recall old faces.

Undergoing Facial Recognition Evaluations

I felt curious whether these tests would offer understanding on why strangers look recognizable. Was I someone who never forgets a face? I often recall people more than they remember me, and feel disheartened – a sentiment that researchers say is frequent for superior face rememberers. But maybe I hyper-recognize faces – to the extent that even some new faces look recognizable.

I was sent several face identification tests. I completed them, feeling puzzled 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 instructed me to pick out famous people from a mix of photos, many of the faces felt at least known, but I couldn't exactly identify them – reminiscent to my real-life experience.

I felt doubtful about my results. But after analysis of my results, I had properly distinguished 96% of the celebrity faces. The conclusion was that I qualified as a "almost superior face rememberer".

Understanding Incorrect Identification Rates

I also excelled in the old/new faces task, which was described as especially effective for evaluating someone's recognition for faces. The test-taker looks at a collection of 60 black-and-white photos, each of a different face. Then they examine a series of 120 similar photos – the original series plus 60 unknown visages – and specify which were in the first set. The exceptional facial identifier threshold is roughly 80%; I remembered 78% of the faces I'd seen. On the other side of the spectrum, people with facial agnosia correctly guess an average of 57%.

I felt content with my score, but also surprised. I recognized many of the previously seen countenances, but infrequently mistook a unknown visage for one that I'd seen before. My score on this indicator, called the false alarm rate, was 18%. Average identifiers, exceptional facial identifiers and face-blind individuals all have a mistaken recognition percentage of about 30% on average. So why was I mistaking a unknown person's face for my grandma's?

Examining Plausible Explanations

It was suggested that I likely possessed some superior face rememberer capabilities. Everyone has a database of the faces we know in our recall, but superior face rememberers – and probably almost superior rememberers like me – have a comparatively extensive and precise catalogue. We're also possibly to distinguish countenances – that is, assign characteristics to each face, such as amiability or rudeness. Studies suggests that the second aspect helps people to learn and commit faces to long-term memory. While individuating may help me recognize people, it may also trick me into seeing my grandma in a woman who has a similar air.

In moreover, it was thought I might be "an active face perceiver", meaning I pay a lot of attention to faces. Others may have more mistaken recognition moments, thinking they identify someone they don't know. But because I tend to look closely at faces, I am prone to notice the stranger who resembles my grandmother. Indeed, one acquaintance who said she doesn't make facial recognition mistakes acknowledged she doesn't really look at the people around her.

Examining Hyperfamiliarity for Faces

These tests helped me understand where I positioned on the spectrum. But I wanted to understand more about what is happening in the brain when we "recognize" unknown people. Examining further, I read about a condition called hyperfamiliarity for faces (HFF), in which unfamiliar faces appear known. Initially, this sounded like it could relate to me. But the small number of recorded occurrences all happened after a health incident such as a convulsion or brain attack, unlike the peculiarity that I've been noticing my whole mature years.

Through investigative websites, experts have heard from about 24,000 those with facial agnosia, as well as people with all kinds of face identification difficulties, including sight abnormalities, like when faces appear to be liquefying. Researchers study many of these people, using tools like the known/unknown countenances task and the memory for faces evaluation.

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

"The frequency is quite low," one expert said of HFF. However, they hypothesized that there may be a range, with some people who think each countenance is recognizable, and others, like me, who only undergo it a multiple instances a month.

{Understanding