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Throughout my twenties, I noticed 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 couldn't be her.

I'd had similar situations all through my life. From time to time, I "knew" someone I was unacquainted with. At times I could rapidly determine who the unknown individual resembled – like my grandmother. On other occasions, a visage simply had a vague familiarity I couldn't recognize.

Investigating the Spectrum of Facial Recognition Abilities

In recent times, I started wondering if different individuals have these unusual encounters. When I questioned my acquaintances, one mentioned she frequently sees individuals in unexpected places who look familiar. Others at times confuse a stranger or celebrity for someone they know in real life. But some mentioned nothing of the kind – they could readily recognize people they'd met and people they hadn't.

I felt intrigued by this spectrum of responses. Was it just yearning that made me see my grandma that day – or some kind of brain malfunction? Scientific investigation has found we spend about a quarter-hour 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 interpret the same thing.

Grasping the Continuum of Person Recognition Skills

Researchers have developed many assessments to measure the skill to recognize faces. There exists a wide range: at one extreme are superior face rememberers, who recall faces they have seen only momentarily or a long time ago; at the other are people with facial agnosia, who often struggle to recognize relatives, intimate companions and even themselves.

Some assessments also capture how proficient someone is at determining if they have not seen a face before. This is where I think I fall short. But researchers "just haven't dug into this" as much as they've studied the skill to recall a face, according to neuroscience experts. It does seem that the two skills use separate brain processes; for example, there is indication that superior face rememberers 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 Person Recognition Evaluations

I felt intrigued whether these evaluations would shed some light on why unfamiliar individuals look familiar. Was I someone who always remembers a face? I often recognize people more than they recall me, and feel disappointed – a emotion that researchers say is common for superior face rememberers. But maybe I over-recognize faces – to the degree that even some new faces look familiar.

I received several face identification tests. I waded through them, feeling stumped at times. In one, called the memory for faces evaluation, I had to look at black-and-white photos of a face from different viewpoints, then find it in arrays. During another test that told me to pick out public figures from a mix of photos, many of the faces felt at least recognizable, but I couldn't exactly identify them – comparable to my real-life experience.

I felt less than confident about my performance. But after analysis of my scores, 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 particularly good for evaluating someone's recall for faces. The test-taker looks at a collection of 60 monochrome photos, each of a different face. Then they review a sequence of 120 similar photos – the initial collection plus 60 new faces – and specify which were in the original collection. The super-recognizer threshold is roughly 80%; I recognized 78% of the faces I'd seen. On the other extreme of the continuum, people with prosopagnosia accurately identify an average of 57%.

I felt satisfied with my result, but also surprised. I remembered many of the previously seen countenances, but seldom confused a unknown visage for one that I'd seen before. My score on this metric, called the incorrect identification frequency, was 18%. Typical rememberers, super-recognizers and those with facial agnosia all have a mistaken recognition percentage of about 30% on average. So why was I confusing a unknown person's face for my grandma's?

Exploring Plausible Explanations

It was suggested that I likely possessed some superior face rememberer capabilities. Everyone has a inventory of the faces we know in our recall, but super-recognizers – and possibly almost superior rememberers like me – have a comparatively extensive and high-resolution catalogue. We're also possibly to distinguish countenances – that is, ascribe traits to each face, such as amiability or impoliteness. Scientific investigation suggests that the later element helps people to learn and retain faces to permanent recall. While distinguishing may help me recognize people, it may also deceive me into seeing my grandma in a woman who has a similar air.

In addition, it was believed I might be "an engaged facial observer", meaning I pay a considerable notice to faces. Others may have more incorrect identification moments, thinking they identify someone they don't know. But because I tend to look carefully at faces, I am prone to notice the unfamiliar individual who resembles my grandmother. Indeed, one acquaintance who said she doesn't make facial recognition mistakes confessed she doesn't really look at the people around her.

Examining Hyperfamiliarity for Faces

These evaluations helped me understand where I stood on the range. But I wanted to understand more about what is happening in the brain when we "identify" unfamiliar individuals. Investigating further, I read about a disorder called over-familiarity with countenances (HFF), in which unfamiliar faces appear recognizable. Superficially, this sounded like it could relate to me. But the small number of recorded occurrences all occurred after a health incident such as a seizure or stroke, unlike the idiosyncrasy that I've been experiencing my whole adult life.

Through investigative websites, 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 dissolving. Researchers study many of these people, using instruments like the known/unknown countenances task and the facial recall assessment.

Experts have heard from only a small number of people with potential HFF in long durations 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 familiar, and others, like me, who only experience it a few times a month.

{Understanding