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During my young adulthood, I spotted my elderly relative through the window of a café. I felt dumbstruck – she had departed the prior year. I looked intently for a moment, then remembered it couldn't possibly be her.

I'd experienced similar situations all through my life. Occasionally, I "recognized" a person I didn't know. At times I could rapidly pinpoint who the unfamiliar person reminded me of – for instance my elderly relative. In other instances, a visage simply had a subtle recognition I couldn't recognize.

Examining the Spectrum of Person Recognition Experiences

Recently, I became curious if other people have these odd situations. When I asked my acquaintances, one commented she often sees people in unexpected places who look known. Others occasionally mistake a stranger or celebrity for someone they know in real life. But some reported nothing of the kind – they could readily identify people they'd met and people they hadn't.

I felt curious by this diversity of perceptions. 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 beginning to realize that we can all see the same face but not perceive the same thing.

Understanding the Continuum of Facial Recognition Abilities

Researchers have developed many evaluations to quantify the skill to recognize faces. There exists a broad spectrum: at one side are exceptional facial identifiers, who recognize faces they have seen only momentarily or a distant past; at the other are people with prosopagnosia, who often find it challenging to know relatives, dear acquaintances and even themselves.

Some assessments also measure how good someone is at determining if they have not seen a face before. This is where I believe I have limitations. But researchers "haven't thoroughly investigated this" as much as they've examined the capacity to remember a face, according to neuroscience experts. It does seem that the two capabilities use separate brain processes; for instance, there is indication that exceptional facial identifiers and those with facial agnosia do about as well as each other at discerning new faces, despite their vastly dissimilar abilities to recall old faces.

Taking Face Identification Tests

I felt intrigued whether these assessments would provide insight on why unfamiliar individuals look known. Was I someone who constantly recalls a face? I often remember people more than they recognize me, and feel disheartened – a feeling that scientists 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 person recognition tests. I worked through 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 multiple perspectives, then find it in arrays. During another test that told me to pick out famous people from a mix of photos, many of the faces felt at least familiar, but I couldn't quite place them – reminiscent to my actual experience.

I felt doubtful about my performance. But after evaluation of my scores, I had accurately recognized 96% of the public figure faces. The conclusion was that I qualified as a "almost superior face rememberer".

Comprehending False Alarm Rates

I also did exceptionally in the old/new faces task, which was described as particularly good for measuring someone's recognition for faces. The test-taker looks at a sequence of 60 grayscale photos, each of a different face. Then they review a series of 120 analogous photos – the initial collection plus 60 unfamiliar countenances – and specify which were in the first set. The super-recognizer cutoff is roughly 80%; I recalled 78% of the faces I'd seen. On the other side of the range, people with facial agnosia accurately identify an average of 57%.

I felt pleased with my performance, but also taken aback. I remembered many of the old faces, but infrequently misidentified a unfamiliar countenance for one that I'd seen before. My performance on this indicator, called the incorrect identification frequency, was 18%. Normal recognizers, superior face rememberers and prosopagnosics all have a false alarm rate of about 30% on average. So why was I misidentifying a unknown person's face for my grandmother's?

Exploring Plausible Reasons

It was proposed that I probably possessed some superior face rememberer capabilities. Everyone has a catalogue of the faces we know in our recollection, but superior face rememberers – and likely borderline straddlers like me – have a relatively large and detailed catalogue. We're also likely to individuate faces – that is, ascribe characteristics to each face, such as amiability or impoliteness. Studies suggests that the latter helps people to learn and store faces to permanent recall. While distinguishing may help me remember people, it may also mislead me into seeing my grandmother in a woman who has a analogous presence.

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

Researching Over-familiarity for Faces

These tests 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" unfamiliar individuals. Investigating further, I read about a disorder called excessive facial recognition (HFF), in which unknown faces appear known. On the surface, this sounded like it could pertain to me. But the handful of reported cases all took place after a health incident such as a seizure or stroke, unlike the idiosyncrasy that I've been observing my whole adult life.

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 perceptual alterations, like when faces appear to be dissolving. Researchers study many of these people, using instruments like the known/unknown countenances task and the Cambridge Face Memory Test.

Experts have heard from only a small number of people with possible HFF in many years of investigation.

"The prevalence 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