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In my twenties, I spotted my grandmother through the window of a coffee shop. I felt astonished – she had died the previous year. I stared for a moment, then recalled it couldn't possibly be her.

I'd encountered similar experiences during my life. Occasionally, I "recognized" an individual I was unacquainted with. Occasionally I could rapidly identify who the unfamiliar person reminded me of – like my grandma. On other occasions, a countenance simply had a vague familiarity I couldn't recognize.

Investigating the Range of Face Identification Capabilities

Recently, I became curious if other people have these unusual situations. When I questioned my friends, one commented she often sees people in unexpected places who look recognizable. Others occasionally mistake a unknown person or public figure for someone they know in actual life. But some reported nothing of the kind – they could effortlessly recognize people they'd met and people they hadn't.

I felt fascinated by this spectrum of responses. Was it just desire that made me see my grandmother that day – or some kind of cognitive error? Studies has found we spend about approximately 900 seconds of every hour looking at faces – do we just have inaccuracies sometimes? I was starting to understand that we can all see the same face but not experience the same thing.

Grasping the Continuum of Facial Recognition Skills

Investigators have created many assessments to quantify the ability to recognize faces. There exists a broad spectrum: at one end are superior face rememberers, who remember faces they have seen only momentarily or a considerable time past; at the other are people with face blindness, who often have difficulty to recognize kin, dear acquaintances and even themselves.

Some tests also measure how proficient someone is at telling if they have not seen a face before. This is where I suspect I fall short. But researchers "haven't extensively researched this" as much as they've looked at the skill to remember a face, according to brain researchers. It does seem that the two abilities use different brain functions; for case, there is indication that exceptional facial identifiers and those with facial agnosia do about as well as each other at identifying new faces, despite their extremely distinct abilities to remember old faces.

Taking Face Identification Evaluations

I felt intrigued whether these evaluations would shed some light on why unknown people look familiar. Was I someone who constantly recalls a face? I often remember people more than they recognize me, and feel let down – a feeling that experts say is typical for exceptional facial identifiers. But maybe I hyper-recognize faces – to the point that even some new faces look familiar.

I was sent several face identification 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 precisely recognize them – similar to my actual experience.

I felt doubtful about my results. But after analysis of my scores, I had accurately recognized 96% of the celebrity faces. The determination was that I qualified as a "near-exceptional facial identifier".

Grasping Mistaken Recognition Rates

I also did exceptionally in the known/unknown countenances task, which was described as notably useful for measuring someone's recall for faces. The participant looks at a collection of 60 black-and-white photos, each of a separate face. Then they review a string of 120 similar photos – the first group plus 60 unknown visages – and specify which were in the first set. The exceptional facial identifier cutoff is roughly 80%; I recalled 78% of the faces I'd seen. On the other side of the range, people with face blindness correctly guess an average of 57%.

I felt satisfied with my score, but also taken aback. I recalled many of the familiar visages, but seldom mistook a unfamiliar countenance for one that I'd seen before. My result on this measure, called the mistaken recognition percentage, was 18%. Average identifiers, superior face rememberers 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 elderly relative's?

Examining Plausible Causes

It was suggested that I probably possessed some exceptional facial identifier abilities. Everyone has a inventory of the faces we know in our memory, but exceptional facial identifiers – and probably borderline straddlers like me – have a comparatively extensive and detailed catalogue. We're also likely to differentiate visages – that is, ascribe qualities to each face, such as friendliness or impoliteness. Scientific investigation suggests that the second aspect helps people to learn and retain faces to enduring recollection. While individuating may help me recall people, it may also trick me into seeing my grandmother in a woman who has a analogous presence.

In addition, it was believed I might be "an active face perceiver", meaning I pay a considerable notice to faces. Others may have more false alarm moments, thinking they know someone they don't know. But because I tend to look carefully at faces, I am inclined to notice the unfamiliar individual who resembles my elderly relative. Indeed, one companion who said she doesn't make person recognition mistakes acknowledged she doesn't really look at the people around her.

Researching Excessive Recognition for Faces

These tests helped me understand where I sat on the continuum. But I wanted to understand more about what is happening in the brain when we "know" unfamiliar individuals. Investigating further, I read about a condition called over-familiarity with countenances (HFF), in which unknown faces appear recognizable. On the surface, this sounded like it could relate to me. But the small number of recorded occurrences all happened after a health incident such as a epileptic episode or brain attack, unlike the peculiarity that I've been noticing 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 face identification difficulties, including perceptual alterations, like when faces appear to be melting. Researchers study many of these people, using instruments like the previously seen/unfamiliar faces task and the Cambridge Face Memory Test.

Experts have heard from only a few of people with suspected HFF in many years of investigation.

"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 undergo it a several occasions a month.

{Understanding