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During my twenties, I observed my grandma through the pane of a coffee shop. I felt stunned – she had departed the previous year. I stared for a moment, then reminded myself it couldn't be her.

I'd experienced similar experiences during my life. Occasionally, I "knew" a person I didn't know. At times I could rapidly determine who the unknown individual reminded me of – such as my grandma. On other occasions, a face simply had a subtle recognition I couldn't place.

Examining the Range of Person Recognition Abilities

Lately, I became curious if others have these peculiar encounters. When I inquired my friends, one commented she regularly sees persons in random places who look known. Others sometimes confuse a unknown person or famous person for someone they know in actual life. But some described no such experiences – they could easily distinguish people they'd met and people they hadn't.

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

Understanding the Spectrum of Facial Recognition Skills

Investigators have designed many evaluations to assess the ability to recognize faces. There exists a wide range: at one side are exceptional facial identifiers, who recognize faces they have seen only for a short time or a considerable time past; at the other are people with prosopagnosia, who often have difficulty to recognize family, close friends and even themselves.

Some evaluations also measure how proficient someone is at telling if they have not seen a face before. This is where I believe I have limitations. But scientists "haven't extensively researched this" as much as they've studied the ability to recall a face, according to neuroscience experts. It does seem that the two abilities use different brain mechanisms; for example, there is proof that exceptional facial identifiers and face-blind individuals do about as well as each other at discerning new faces, despite their wildly different abilities to remember old faces.

Completing Face Identification Assessments

I felt intrigued whether these tests would provide insight 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 researchers say is typical for exceptional facial identifiers. But maybe I over-recognize faces – to the extent that even some new faces look recognizable.

I received several face identification tests. I waded through them, feeling confused at times. In one, called the facial recall assessment, I had to look at black-and-white photos of a face from different viewpoints, then find it in groups. During another test that directed me to pick out celebrities from a mix of photos, many of the faces felt at least familiar, but I couldn't exactly identify them – reminiscent to my everyday experience.

I felt less than confident about my performance. But after analysis of my performance, I had properly distinguished 96% of the celebrity faces. The conclusion was that I qualified as a "near-exceptional facial identifier".

Comprehending Mistaken Recognition Frequencies

I also excelled in the known/unknown countenances task, which was described as especially effective for assessing someone's memory for faces. The subject looks at a sequence of 60 black-and-white photos, each of a different face. Then they review a string of 120 comparable photos – the first group plus 60 unfamiliar countenances – and indicate which were in the first set. The superior face rememberer benchmark is roughly 80%; I remembered 78% of the faces I'd seen. On the other extreme of the spectrum, people with prosopagnosia correctly guess an average of 57%.

I felt pleased with my score, but also surprised. I recognized many of the previously seen countenances, but infrequently confused a new face for one that I'd seen before. My score on this indicator, called the incorrect identification frequency, was 18%. Normal recognizers, exceptional facial identifiers and prosopagnosics all have a mistaken recognition percentage of about 30% on average. So why was I confusing a stranger's face for my grandma's?

Examining Potential Explanations

It was theorized that I possibly possessed some super-recognizer capacities. Everyone has a inventory of the faces we know in our memory, but superior face rememberers – and possibly borderline straddlers like me – have a fairly substantial and precise catalogue. We're also possibly to individuate faces – that is, attribute traits to each face, such as amiability or discourtesy. Research suggests that the later element helps people to acquire and retain faces to permanent recall. While individuating may help me recall people, it may also trick me into seeing my grandmother in a woman who has a similar air.

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 false alarm moments, thinking they know someone they don't know. But because I tend to look attentively at faces, I am disposed to notice the unfamiliar individual who looks like my grandma. Indeed, one friend who said she doesn't make face identification mistakes confessed she doesn't really look at the people around her.

Investigating Over-familiarity for Faces

These assessments helped me understand where I sat on the spectrum. 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 recognizable. Initially, this sounded like it could relate to me. But the handful of documented instances all took place after a physical event such as a epileptic episode or brain attack, unlike the quirk that I've been noticing my whole mature years.

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 visual distortions, like when faces appear to be dissolving. Researchers study many of these people, using tools like the old/new faces task and the memory for faces evaluation.

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

"The frequency 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 recognizable, and others, like me, who only experience it a few times a month.

{Understanding