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During my twenties, I spotted my grandmother through the pane of a coffee shop. I felt astonished – she had passed away the previous year. I gazed for a short time, then recalled it couldn't be her.

I'd experienced similar experiences throughout my life. Periodically, I "identified" a person I had never met. At times I could promptly determine who the stranger resembled – for instance my grandma. In other instances, a face simply had a vague familiarity I couldn't identify.

Investigating the Variety of Facial Recognition Abilities

Recently, I began questioning if other people have these odd encounters. When I inquired my friends, one commented she frequently sees people in unpredictable places who look recognizable. Others at times misidentify a stranger or celebrity for someone they know in real life. But some described nothing of the kind – they could easily identify people they'd met and people they hadn't.

I felt intrigued by this range of experiences. Was it just yearning that made me see my grandma that day – or some kind of brain malfunction? Scientific investigation 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 experience the same thing.

Understanding the Spectrum of Face Identification Capacities

Researchers have designed many tests to quantify the ability to recall faces. There exists a broad spectrum: at one side are exceptional facial identifiers, who remember faces they have seen only briefly or a distant past; at the other are people with facial agnosia, who often have difficulty to know kin, close friends and even themselves.

Some tests also assess how proficient someone is at recognizing if they have not seen a face before. This is where I think I fall short. But scientists "haven't extensively researched this" as much as they've studied the skill to remember a face, according to cognitive neuroscientists. It does seem that the two skills use distinct brain processes; for case, there is proof that super-recognizers and those with facial agnosia do about as well as each other at identifying new faces, despite their vastly dissimilar abilities to recognize old faces.

Undergoing Person Recognition Assessments

I felt intrigued whether these tests would offer understanding on why strangers look familiar. Was I someone who constantly recalls a face? I often recognize people more than they remember me, and feel disheartened – a feeling that experts say is typical for exceptional facial identifiers. But maybe I over-recognize faces – to the degree 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 memory for faces evaluation, I had to look at monochrome photos of a face from multiple perspectives, 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 recognizable, but I couldn't exactly identify them – reminiscent to my actual experience.

I felt uncertain about my performance. But after evaluation of my scores, I had correctly identified 96% of the public figure faces. The finding was that I qualified as a "almost superior face rememberer".

Grasping False Alarm Percentages

I also performed well in the previously seen/unfamiliar faces task, which was described as especially effective for measuring someone's recognition for faces. The participant looks at a series of 60 grayscale photos, each of a distinct face. Then they examine a sequence of 120 analogous photos – the original series plus 60 new faces – and identify which were in the initial group. The exceptional facial identifier benchmark is roughly 80%; I recalled 78% of the faces I'd seen. On the other extreme of the continuum, people with facial agnosia properly recognize an average of 57%.

I felt pleased with my performance, but also taken aback. I remembered many of the old faces, but seldom misidentified a new face for one that I'd seen before. My score on this metric, called the false alarm rate, was 18%. Normal recognizers, exceptional facial identifiers and prosopagnosics all have a mistaken recognition percentage of about 30% on average. So why was I mistaking a unknown person's face for my elderly relative's?

Exploring Plausible Explanations

It was suggested that I likely possessed some exceptional facial identifier capabilities. Everyone has a database of the faces we know in our recall, but exceptional facial identifiers – and possibly almost superior rememberers like me – have a relatively large and detailed catalogue. We're also likely to individuate faces – that is, attribute traits to each face, such as amiability or rudeness. Research suggests that the later element helps people to develop and retain faces to permanent recall. While differentiating 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 believed I might be "an active face perceiver", 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 similar to my grandmother. Indeed, one companion who said she doesn't make facial recognition mistakes acknowledged she doesn't really look at the people around her.

Investigating Excessive Recognition for Faces

These assessments helped me understand where I positioned on the range. But I wanted to understand more about what is happening in the brain when we "know" strangers. Examining further, I read about a condition called over-familiarity with countenances (HFF), in which unfamiliar faces appear known. On the surface, this sounded like it could apply to me. But the few of documented instances all happened after a physical event such as a seizure or brain attack, unlike the idiosyncrasy 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 sight abnormalities, like when faces appear to be melting. Researchers study many of these people, using methods like the old/new faces task and the facial recall assessment.

Experts have heard from only a few of people with possible HFF in extended periods of research.

"The frequency is quite low," one expert said of HFF. However, they theorized that there may be a spectrum, with some people who think every face is known, and others, like me, who only experience it a few times a month.

{Understanding