I Look at a Stranger and Perceive a Known Individual: Might I Qualify as a Exceptional Facial Identifier?

In my mid-20s, I observed my grandma through the glass of a coffee house. I felt astonished – she had departed the year before. I gazed for a short time, then recalled it couldn't be her.

I'd encountered analogous experiences all through my life. From time to time, I "knew" an individual I didn't know. Sometimes I could quickly pinpoint who the stranger reminded me of – such as my grandma. On other occasions, a face simply had a indistinct knowingness I couldn't recognize.

Exploring the Spectrum of Person Recognition Capabilities

In recent times, I became curious if different individuals have these peculiar situations. When I questioned my companions, one said she regularly sees persons in unpredictable places who look known. Others occasionally mistake a stranger or public figure for someone they know in real life. But some described nothing of the kind – they could easily distinguish people they'd met and people they hadn't.

I felt fascinated by this diversity of experiences. 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 a quarter-hour of every hour looking at faces – do we just err sometimes? I was commencing to comprehend that we can all see the same face but not interpret the same thing.

Comprehending the Continuum of Face Identification Abilities

Researchers have created many assessments to measure the skill to recall faces. There exists a extensive variety: at one extreme are super-recognizers, who recognize faces they have seen only briefly or a distant past; at the other are people with facial agnosia, who often have difficulty to recognize relatives, intimate companions and even themselves.

Some tests also capture how proficient someone is at recognizing if they have not seen a face before. This is where I suspect I have limitations. But researchers "just haven't dug into this" as much as they've examined the skill to recall a face, according to cognitive neuroscientists. It does seem that the two capabilities use different brain processes; for case, there is evidence that super-recognizers and prosopagnosics do about as well as each other at recognizing new faces, despite their vastly dissimilar abilities to recall old faces.

Undergoing Face Identification Assessments

I felt intrigued whether these tests would offer understanding on why unknown people look familiar. Was I someone who constantly recalls a face? I often remember people more than they recall me, and feel disheartened – a emotion that scientists say is frequent for superior face rememberers. But maybe I over-recognize faces – to the degree that even some new faces look known.

I obtained several face identification tests. I waded through them, feeling puzzled at times. In one, called the Cambridge Face Memory Test, I had to look at monochrome photos of a face from three angles, then find it in groups. During another test that directed me to pick out public figures from a mix of photos, many of the faces felt at least familiar, but I couldn't precisely recognize them – similar to my actual experience.

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

Comprehending Mistaken Recognition Rates

I also did exceptionally in the previously seen/unfamiliar faces task, which was described as especially effective for evaluating someone's recognition for faces. The subject looks at a sequence of 60 black-and-white photos, each of a distinct face. Then they review a series of 120 similar photos – the initial collection plus 60 new faces – and identify which were in the initial group. The super-recognizer cutoff is roughly 80%; I recognized 78% of the faces I'd seen. On the other side of the spectrum, people with facial agnosia properly recognize an average of 57%.

I felt content with my performance, but also astonished. I remembered many of the familiar visages, but seldom mistook a unknown visage for one that I'd seen before. My score on this metric, called the incorrect identification frequency, was 18%. Average identifiers, superior face rememberers and face-blind individuals all have a mistaken recognition percentage of about 30% on average. So why was I mistaking a unfamiliar individual's face for my grandmother's?

Examining Potential Causes

It was theorized that I likely possessed some superior face rememberer capacities. Everyone has a database of the faces we know in our recollection, but superior face rememberers – and possibly almost superior rememberers like me – have a fairly substantial and detailed catalogue. We're also probably to individuate faces – that is, assign characteristics to each face, such as approachability or discourtesy. Studies suggests that the second aspect helps people to learn and commit faces to enduring recollection. While differentiating may help me recall people, it may also deceive me into seeing my grandmother in a woman who has a similar air.

In addition, it was thought I might be "a attentive countenance examiner", meaning I pay a lot of attention to faces. Others may have more mistaken recognition moments, thinking they identify someone they don't know. But because I tend to look carefully at faces, I am disposed to notice the unfamiliar individual who resembles my grandmother. Indeed, one friend who said she doesn't make facial recognition mistakes acknowledged she doesn't really look at the people around her.

Examining Excessive Recognition for Faces

These tests 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" unknown people. Researching further, I read about a condition called hyperfamiliarity for faces (HFF), in which unfamiliar faces appear known. On the surface, this sounded like it could apply to me. But the small number of documented instances all took place after a medical episode such as a convulsion or stroke, unlike the quirk that I've been noticing my whole adult life.

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

Experts have heard from only a small number of people with potential HFF in many years of study.

"The occurrence rate is quite low," one expert said of HFF. However, they speculated that there may be a range, with some people who think all visages is recognizable, and others, like me, who only encounter it a multiple instances a month.

{Understanding