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During my mid-20s, I observed my elderly relative through the pane of a coffee shop. I felt stunned – she had departed the year before. I stared for a brief period, then remembered it couldn't be her.

I'd had similar situations during my life. Periodically, I "knew" someone I didn't know. Occasionally I could quickly identify who the unfamiliar person resembled – such as my elderly relative. On other occasions, a visage simply had a subtle recognition I couldn't place.

Examining the Range of Facial Recognition Capabilities

In recent times, I became curious if others have these unusual experiences. When I asked my acquaintances, one commented she regularly sees individuals in unexpected places who look known. Others at times mistake a unknown person or celebrity for someone they know in everyday existence. But some described no such experiences – they could easily distinguish 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 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 err sometimes? I was beginning to realize that we can all see the same face but not interpret the same thing.

Grasping the Range of Person Recognition Capacities

Researchers have developed many tests to assess the capacity to recall faces. There exists a extensive variety: at one end 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 identify family, close friends and even themselves.

Some tests also measure how skilled someone is at determining if they have not seen a face before. This is where I believe I have limitations. But experts "haven't extensively researched this" as much as they've studied the skill to recall a face, according to cognitive neuroscientists. It does seem that the two skills use different brain mechanisms; for instance, there is evidence that super-recognizers 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 Assessments

I felt curious whether these evaluations would shed some light on why unknown people look known. Was I someone who constantly recalls a face? I often recognize people more than they recall me, and feel disheartened – a emotion that experts say is typical for exceptional facial identifiers. But maybe I hyper-recognize faces – to the extent that even some new faces look known.

I obtained several person recognition tests. I waded through them, feeling stumped at times. In one, called the Cambridge Face Memory Test, I had to look at black-and-white photos of a face from multiple perspectives, 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 quite place them – reminiscent to my actual experience.

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

Understanding False Alarm Frequencies

I also did exceptionally in the known/unknown countenances task, which was described as notably useful for measuring someone's memory for faces. The test-taker looks at a sequence of 60 grayscale photos, each of a separate face. Then they examine a sequence of 120 analogous photos – the initial collection plus 60 new faces – and indicate which were in the initial group. The exceptional facial identifier threshold is roughly 80%; I recalled 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 content with my result, but also surprised. I remembered many of the familiar visages, but seldom mistook a unfamiliar countenance for one that I'd seen before. My performance on this measure, called the incorrect identification frequency, was 18%. Average identifiers, 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 elderly relative's?

Examining Potential Explanations

It was proposed that I likely possessed some exceptional facial identifier abilities. Everyone has a inventory of the faces we know in our recollection, but exceptional facial identifiers – and possibly borderline straddlers like me – have a relatively large and precise catalogue. We're also possibly to individuate faces – that is, attribute characteristics to each face, such as friendliness or discourtesy. Scientific investigation suggests that the second aspect helps people to learn and commit faces to long-term memory. While differentiating may help me recognize people, it may also mislead me into seeing my grandma in a woman who has a analogous presence.

In addition, it was considered I might be "an engaged facial observer", meaning I pay a considerable notice 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 inclined to notice the unknown person who looks like my grandmother. Indeed, one acquaintance who said she doesn't make person recognition mistakes admitted she doesn't really look at the people around her.

Examining Over-familiarity for Faces

These evaluations helped me understand where I positioned on the spectrum. But I wanted to understand more about what is happening in the brain when we "know" strangers. Investigating further, I read about a disorder called over-familiarity with countenances (HFF), in which unfamiliar faces appear recognizable. On the surface, this sounded like it could apply to me. But the handful of recorded occurrences all took place after a health incident such as a seizure or cerebral accident, 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 person recognition challenges, including visual distortions, like when faces appear to be melting. Researchers study many of these people, using tools like the old/new faces task and the facial recall assessment.

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

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

{Understanding