🔗 Share this article

In my twenties, I observed my grandma through the glass of a coffee shop. I felt dumbstruck – she had passed away the year before. I looked intently for a moment, then reminded myself it was impossible to be her.

I'd experienced analogous situations all through my life. From time to time, I "knew" an individual I didn't know. Sometimes I could quickly pinpoint who the unknown individual resembled – such as my grandma. In other instances, a face simply had a indistinct knowingness I couldn't identify.

Investigating the Variety of Face Identification Experiences

In recent times, I became curious if different individuals have these odd encounters. When I questioned my friends, one commented she frequently sees persons in random places who look recognizable. Others at times confuse a unknown person or public figure for someone they know in everyday existence. But some reported completely different responses – they could easily distinguish people they'd met and people they hadn't.

I felt intrigued by this diversity of perceptions. Was it just desire that made me see my elderly relative that day – or some kind of brain malfunction? Scientific investigation has found we spend about approximately 900 seconds of every hour looking at faces – do we just have inaccuracies sometimes? I was beginning to realize that we can all see the same face but not perceive the same thing.

Grasping the Range of Facial Recognition Skills

Investigators have developed many tests to assess the ability to recognize faces. There exists a wide range: at one side are super-recognizers, who recall faces they have seen only momentarily or a distant past; at the other are people with facial agnosia, who often have difficulty to know kin, dear acquaintances and even themselves.

Some tests also assess how proficient someone is at determining if they have not seen a face before. This is where I suspect I fall short. But scientists "haven't extensively researched this" as much as they've studied the capacity to recall a face, according to neuroscience experts. It does seem that the two skills use distinct brain processes; for case, there is evidence 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 recognize old faces.

Undergoing Person Recognition Evaluations

I felt curious whether these assessments would shed some light 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 feeling that experts say is common for superior face rememberers. But maybe I hyper-recognize faces – to the degree that even some new faces look recognizable.

I received several face identification tests. I worked through them, feeling confused at times. In one, called the memory for faces evaluation, I had to look at grayscale photos of a face from multiple perspectives, then find it in groups. During another test that directed me to pick out celebrities from a mix of photos, many of the faces felt at least recognizable, but I couldn't quite place them – reminiscent to my actual experience.

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

Grasping Mistaken Recognition Rates

I also performed well in the known/unknown countenances task, which was described as especially effective for evaluating someone's recognition for faces. The test-taker looks at a sequence of 60 monochrome photos, each of a different face. Then they look through a sequence of 120 analogous photos – the first group plus 60 unfamiliar countenances – and specify which were in the original collection. The super-recognizer cutoff is roughly 80%; I recalled 78% of the faces I'd seen. On the other end of the spectrum, people with facial agnosia properly recognize an average of 57%.

I felt content with my performance, but also surprised. I recalled many of the previously seen countenances, but seldom confused a unfamiliar countenance for one that I'd seen before. My performance on this indicator, called the mistaken recognition percentage, was 18%. Typical rememberers, exceptional facial identifiers and face-blind individuals all have a mistaken recognition percentage of about 30% on average. So why was I confusing a unfamiliar individual's face for my elderly relative's?

Investigating Plausible Causes

It was suggested that I likely possessed some superior face rememberer capacities. Everyone has a database of the faces we know in our recollection, but exceptional facial identifiers – and possibly almost superior rememberers like me – have a comparatively extensive and high-resolution catalogue. We're also possibly to differentiate visages – that is, assign qualities to each face, such as approachability or discourtesy. Research suggests that the second aspect helps people to acquire and store faces to permanent recall. While distinguishing may help me recognize people, it may also trick me into seeing my grandma in a woman who has a similar air.

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

Examining Hyperfamiliarity 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 "know" unfamiliar individuals. Researching 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 few of reported cases all happened after a health incident such as a epileptic episode or brain attack, unlike the quirk that I've been noticing my whole grown-up existence.

Through scientific platforms, experts have heard from about 24,000 face-blind individuals, as well as people with all kinds of face identification challenges, including visual distortions, like when faces appear to be dissolving. Researchers study many of these people, using instruments like the old/new faces task and the Cambridge Face Memory Test.

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

"The frequency is quite low," one expert said of HFF. However, they hypothesized that there may be a range, with some people who think all visages is known, and others, like me, who only encounter it a several occasions a month.

{Understanding