🔗 Share this article

During my twenties, I noticed my elderly relative through the glass of a café. I felt stunned – she had died the year before. I stared for a moment, then remembered it couldn't possibly be her.

I'd experienced analogous experiences throughout my life. Occasionally, I "identified" an individual I didn't know. At times I could promptly determine who the unfamiliar person resembled – for instance my elderly relative. Other times, a face simply had a subtle recognition I couldn't recognize.

Examining the Variety of Face Identification Abilities

In recent times, I started wondering if other people have these unusual situations. When I questioned my acquaintances, one mentioned she often sees individuals in unpredictable places who look familiar. Others sometimes misidentify a stranger or celebrity for someone they know in everyday existence. But some mentioned nothing of the kind – they could readily recognize people they'd met and people they hadn't.

I felt fascinated by this diversity of perceptions. Was it just longing that made me see my grandmother 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 commencing to comprehend that we can all see the same face but not experience the same thing.

Grasping the Continuum of Face Identification Abilities

Scientists have developed many assessments to assess the capacity to recognize faces. There exists a wide range: at one side are superior face rememberers, who recall faces they have seen only briefly or a considerable time past; at the other are people with prosopagnosia, who often find it challenging to identify relatives, intimate companions and even themselves.

Some evaluations also capture how proficient someone is at telling if they have not seen a face before. This is where I believe I fall short. But researchers "haven't thoroughly investigated this" as much as they've examined the ability to recall a face, according to neuroscience experts. It does seem that the two skills use separate brain mechanisms; for example, there is evidence that exceptional facial identifiers and those with facial agnosia do about as well as each other at discerning new faces, despite their extremely distinct abilities to remember old faces.

Undergoing Person Recognition Tests

I felt curious whether these assessments would shed some light on why unknown people look familiar. Was I someone who constantly recalls a face? I often recognize people more than they recognize me, and feel disappointed – a emotion that experts say is frequent for superior face rememberers. But maybe I excessively identify faces – to the extent that even some new faces look familiar.

I was sent several face identification tests. I completed them, feeling stumped 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 groups. During another test that directed me to pick out celebrities from a mix of photos, many of the faces felt at least familiar, but I couldn't precisely recognize them – similar to my real-life experience.

I felt doubtful about my outcome. But after assessment of my performance, I had properly distinguished 96% of the public figure faces. The conclusion was that I qualified as a "almost superior face rememberer".

Comprehending Incorrect Identification Rates

I also excelled in the known/unknown countenances task, which was described as particularly good for measuring someone's recall for faces. The test-taker looks at a collection of 60 black-and-white photos, each of a distinct face. Then they examine a string of 120 similar photos – the original series plus 60 unknown visages – and identify which were in the first set. The super-recognizer benchmark is roughly 80%; I recognized 78% of the faces I'd seen. On the other side of the continuum, people with prosopagnosia correctly guess an average of 57%.

I felt pleased with my result, but also taken aback. I remembered many of the familiar visages, but seldom mistook a new face for one that I'd seen before. My score on this indicator, called the false alarm rate, was 18%. Normal recognizers, exceptional facial identifiers and those with facial agnosia all have a false alarm rate of about 30% on average. So why was I confusing a unfamiliar individual's face for my elderly relative's?

Investigating Plausible Explanations

It was suggested that I possibly possessed some exceptional facial identifier capabilities. Everyone has a inventory of the faces we know in our recollection, but superior face rememberers – and probably almost superior rememberers like me – have a comparatively extensive and detailed catalogue. We're also probably to differentiate visages – that is, ascribe qualities to each face, such as friendliness or discourtesy. Research suggests that the second aspect helps people to develop and retain faces to long-term memory. While differentiating may help me recognize people, it may also deceive me into seeing my grandma in a woman who has a comparable demeanor.

In furthermore, it was believed I might be "an engaged facial observer", meaning I pay a considerable notice to faces. Others may have more mistaken recognition moments, thinking they identify someone they don't know. But because I tend to look attentively at faces, I am disposed to notice the unknown person who similar to my elderly relative. Indeed, one companion who said she doesn't make face identification mistakes admitted she doesn't really look at the people around her.

Researching Excessive Recognition for Faces

These assessments helped me understand where I sat on the continuum. But I wanted to understand more about what is happening in the brain when we "recognize" strangers. Investigating further, I read about a syndrome called excessive facial recognition (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 seizure or cerebral accident, unlike the quirk that I've been observing my whole grown-up existence.

Through research sites, experts have heard from about 24,000 those with facial agnosia, as well as people with all kinds of face identification problems, including perceptual alterations, like when faces appear to be dissolving. Researchers study many of these people, using methods like the known/unknown countenances task and the memory for faces evaluation.

Experts have heard from only a few of people with suspected HFF in extended periods of research.

"The frequency is quite low," one expert said of HFF. However, they theorized that there may be a spectrum, with some people who think each countenance is recognizable, and others, like me, who only undergo it a several occasions a month.

{Understanding