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In my mid-20s, I observed my grandma through the glass of a coffee shop. I felt astonished – she had died the year before. I looked intently for a moment, then reminded myself it couldn't be her.

I'd encountered similar situations all through my life. From time to time, I "identified" a person I didn't know. Occasionally I could rapidly identify who the unfamiliar person resembled – such as my elderly relative. In other instances, a visage simply had a indistinct knowingness I couldn't identify.

Investigating the Variety of Person Recognition Capabilities

Lately, I became curious if other people have these peculiar experiences. When I inquired my acquaintances, one said she often sees persons in random places who look known. Others occasionally misidentify a stranger or famous person for someone they know in everyday existence. But some reported completely different responses – they could readily recognize people they'd met and people they hadn't.

I felt fascinated by this diversity of experiences. Was it just yearning that made me see my grandmother that day – or some kind of cognitive error? Studies has found we spend about a quarter-hour 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 interpret the same thing.

Comprehending the Range of Face Identification Abilities

Investigators have developed many evaluations to assess the ability to recall faces. There exists a broad spectrum: at one side are exceptional facial identifiers, who recall faces they have seen only briefly or a distant past; at the other are people with facial agnosia, who often have difficulty to identify family, close friends and even themselves.

Some assessments also capture how skilled someone is at recognizing if they have not seen a face before. This is where I think I fall short. But researchers "haven't thoroughly investigated this" as much as they've looked at the ability to recall a face, according to brain researchers. It does seem that the two skills use different brain mechanisms; for instance, there is proof that exceptional facial identifiers and face-blind individuals do about as well as each other at recognizing new faces, despite their vastly dissimilar abilities to recall old faces.

Undergoing Facial Recognition Tests

I felt interested whether these tests would provide insight on why unfamiliar individuals look recognizable. Was I someone who never forgets a face? I often remember people more than they remember me, and feel let down – a feeling that scientists say is frequent for superior face rememberers. But maybe I excessively identify faces – to the extent that even some new faces look recognizable.

I received several person recognition tests. I completed them, feeling stumped at times. In one, called the facial recall assessment, I had to look at black-and-white photos of a face from three angles, then find it in groups. During another test that instructed me to pick out celebrities from a mix of photos, many of the faces felt at least known, but I couldn't exactly identify them – comparable to my real-life experience.

I felt less than confident about my performance. But after analysis of my results, I had correctly identified 96% of the public figure faces. The determination was that I qualified as a "near-exceptional facial identifier".

Understanding Incorrect Identification Rates

I also did exceptionally in the known/unknown countenances task, which was described as especially effective for assessing someone's memory for faces. The subject looks at a series of 60 monochrome photos, each of a different face. Then they look through a string of 120 similar photos – the initial collection plus 60 unfamiliar countenances – and identify which were in the original collection. The exceptional facial identifier threshold is roughly 80%; I recognized 78% of the faces I'd seen. On the other end of the continuum, people with facial agnosia accurately identify an average of 57%.

I felt pleased with my result, but also surprised. I recognized many of the old faces, but seldom confused a unknown visage for one that I'd seen before. My performance on this indicator, called the false alarm rate, was 18%. Normal recognizers, exceptional facial identifiers and prosopagnosics all have a incorrect identification frequency of about 30% on average. So why was I mistaking a unknown person's face for my grandma's?

Examining Potential Reasons

It was suggested that I likely possessed some superior face rememberer capacities. Everyone has a inventory of the faces we know in our recollection, but superior face rememberers – and possibly almost superior rememberers like me – have a fairly substantial and precise catalogue. We're also possibly to differentiate visages – that is, ascribe traits to each face, such as amiability or impoliteness. Research suggests that the later element helps people to develop and commit faces to permanent recall. While individuating may help me recognize people, it may also trick me into seeing my elderly relative in a woman who has a comparable demeanor.

In addition, it was believed I might be "a attentive countenance examiner", meaning I pay a significant focus to faces. Others may have more false alarm moments, thinking they know someone they don't know. But because I tend to look closely at faces, I am prone to notice the unknown person who looks like my grandma. Indeed, one companion who said she doesn't make face identification mistakes admitted she doesn't really look at the people around her.

Researching Excessive Recognition for Faces

These assessments 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" unfamiliar individuals. Examining further, I read about a condition called excessive facial recognition (HFF), in which unfamiliar faces appear familiar. Superficially, this sounded like it could relate to me. But the small number of recorded occurrences all took place after a physical event such as a epileptic episode or brain attack, unlike the quirk that I've been observing my whole adult life.

Through research sites, experts have heard from about 24,000 prosopagnosics, as well as people with all kinds of person recognition difficulties, including visual distortions, like when faces appear to be dissolving. Researchers study many of these people, using methods like the previously seen/unfamiliar faces task and the facial recall assessment.

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

"The occurrence rate 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 familiar, and others, like me, who only encounter it a several occasions a month.

{Understanding