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During my mid-20s, I observed my grandma through the pane of a coffee shop. I felt dumbstruck – she had died the year before. I gazed for a moment, then remembered it couldn't be her.

I'd had comparable situations during my life. Occasionally, I "knew" a person I didn't know. Sometimes I could promptly identify who the stranger reminded me of – for instance my elderly relative. On other occasions, a visage simply had a subtle recognition I couldn't identify.

Examining the Range of Facial Recognition Capabilities

Recently, I became curious if others have these peculiar experiences. When I inquired my companions, one mentioned she regularly sees individuals in unpredictable places who look known. Others at times mistake a unknown person or public figure for someone they know in everyday existence. But some mentioned nothing of the kind – they could effortlessly identify people they'd met and people they hadn't.

I felt fascinated by this range of perceptions. Was it just longing that made me see my elderly relative that day – or some kind of mental glitch? Research 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.

Comprehending the Spectrum of Face Identification Abilities

Scientists have created many tests to quantify the skill to recognize faces. There exists a wide range: at one extreme are superior face rememberers, who recall faces they have seen only for a short time or a considerable time past; at the other are people with prosopagnosia, who often find it challenging to know relatives, close friends and even themselves.

Some assessments also capture how good someone is at recognizing if they have not seen a face before. This is where I suspect I am deficient. But researchers "haven't extensively researched this" as much as they've looked at the ability to recall a face, according to brain researchers. It does seem that the two abilities use separate brain mechanisms; for example, there is evidence that superior face rememberers and prosopagnosics do about as well as each other at discerning new faces, despite their extremely distinct abilities to remember old faces.

Taking Person Recognition Assessments

I felt intrigued whether these assessments would provide insight on why strangers look familiar. Was I someone who always remembers a face? I often remember people more than they remember me, and feel let down – a emotion that experts say is frequent for super-recognizers. But maybe I hyper-recognize faces – to the extent that even some new faces look recognizable.

I received several facial recognition tests. I waded through them, feeling puzzled at times. In one, called the facial recall assessment, I had to look at grayscale photos of a face from different viewpoints, then find it in lineups. During another test that directed me to pick out celebrities from a mix of photos, many of the faces felt at least known, but I couldn't precisely recognize them – similar to my real-life experience.

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

Understanding False Alarm Rates

I also excelled in the previously seen/unfamiliar faces task, which was described as especially effective for measuring someone's memory for faces. The participant looks at a collection of 60 monochrome photos, each of a separate face. Then they examine a sequence of 120 analogous photos – the initial collection plus 60 unknown visages – and indicate which were in the first set. The superior face rememberer benchmark is roughly 80%; I recognized 78% of the faces I'd seen. On the other extreme of the range, people with prosopagnosia correctly guess an average of 57%.

I felt pleased with my performance, but also surprised. I recalled many of the previously seen countenances, but seldom misidentified a new face for one that I'd seen before. My performance on this measure, called the false alarm rate, was 18%. Average identifiers, exceptional facial identifiers and face-blind individuals all have a mistaken recognition percentage of about 30% on average. So why was I confusing a stranger's face for my elderly relative's?

Examining Potential Reasons

It was suggested that I possibly possessed some superior face rememberer abilities. Everyone has a inventory of the faces we know in our memory, but super-recognizers – and likely near-exceptional individuals like me – have a comparatively extensive and detailed catalogue. We're also likely to distinguish countenances – that is, attribute qualities to each face, such as friendliness or discourtesy. Studies suggests that the later element helps people to learn and retain faces to permanent recall. While differentiating may help me recognize people, it may also deceive me into seeing my grandmother in a woman who has a comparable demeanor.

In addition, it was considered I might be "an active face perceiver", meaning I pay a considerable notice to faces. Others may have more incorrect identification moments, thinking they recognize someone they don't know. But because I tend to look closely at faces, I am prone to notice the stranger who looks like my grandma. Indeed, one companion who said she doesn't make face identification mistakes confessed she doesn't really look at the people around her.

Researching Hyperfamiliarity for Faces

These tests helped me understand where I positioned on the range. But I wanted to understand more about what is happening in the brain when we "recognize" strangers. Examining further, I read about a disorder called over-familiarity with countenances (HFF), in which unrecognized faces appear known. On the surface, this sounded like it could apply to me. But the small number of reported cases all occurred after a physical event such as a convulsion or stroke, unlike the peculiarity that I've been observing my whole grown-up existence.

Through scientific platforms, experts have heard from about 24,000 those with facial agnosia, as well as people with all kinds of facial recognition difficulties, including visual distortions, like when faces appear to be melting. Researchers study many of these people, using tools like the known/unknown countenances task and the facial recall assessment.

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

"The prevalence is quite low," one expert said of HFF. However, they hypothesized that there may be a range, with some people who think each countenance is familiar, and others, like me, who only encounter it a multiple instances a month.

{Understanding