Gazing at a Unfamiliar Face and See a Known Individual: Might I Qualify as a Face Recognition Expert?

During my twenties, I spotted my grandma through the window of a coffee house. I felt dumbstruck – she had departed the prior year. I stared for a short time, then reminded myself it couldn't be her.

I'd encountered comparable experiences during my life. From time to time, I "knew" someone I had never met. Occasionally I could rapidly identify who the unknown individual resembled – such as my grandma. Other times, a visage simply had a indistinct knowingness I couldn't place.

Exploring the Spectrum of Facial Recognition Capabilities

Recently, I started wondering if different individuals have these odd experiences. When I inquired my acquaintances, one mentioned she often sees people in unpredictable places who look familiar. Others occasionally confuse a stranger or public figure for someone they know in everyday existence. But some mentioned nothing of the kind – they could readily identify people they'd met and people they hadn't.

I felt curious by this range of perceptions. Was it just longing that made me see my grandma that day – or some kind of mental glitch? Research 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 interpret the same thing.

Comprehending the Spectrum of Face Identification Skills

Investigators have created many tests to measure the ability to recall faces. There exists a broad spectrum: at one end are superior face rememberers, who recognize faces they have seen only momentarily or a considerable time past; at the other are people with prosopagnosia, who often struggle to recognize kin, intimate companions and even themselves.

Some assessments also measure how proficient someone is at telling if they have not seen a face before. This is where I think I am deficient. But scientists "just haven't dug into this" as much as they've studied the capacity to recall a face, according to brain researchers. It does seem that the two capabilities use distinct brain functions; for instance, there is indication that superior face rememberers and prosopagnosics do about as well as each other at recognizing new faces, despite their extremely distinct abilities to remember old faces.

Completing Face Identification Evaluations

I felt intrigued whether these assessments would provide insight on why strangers look recognizable. Was I someone who always remembers a face? I often recognize people more than they recognize me, and feel disappointed – a emotion that experts say is typical for super-recognizers. But maybe I hyper-recognize faces – to the point that even some new faces look recognizable.

I was sent several person recognition tests. I waded through them, feeling puzzled at times. In one, called the facial recall assessment, I had to look at grayscale photos of a face from three angles, then find it in lineups. 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 exactly identify them – similar to my real-life experience.

I felt less than confident about my performance. But after assessment of my scores, I had accurately recognized 96% of the public figure faces. The conclusion was that I qualified as a "borderline super-recognizer".

Understanding Mistaken Recognition Frequencies

I also excelled in the old/new faces task, which was described as notably useful for assessing someone's memory for faces. The test-taker looks at a series of 60 grayscale photos, each of a separate face. Then they examine a string of 120 comparable photos – the first group plus 60 unfamiliar countenances – and indicate which were in the initial group. The superior face rememberer cutoff is roughly 80%; I recognized 78% of the faces I'd seen. On the other end of the spectrum, people with prosopagnosia accurately identify an average of 57%.

I felt satisfied with my result, but also astonished. I recalled many of the familiar visages, but infrequently confused a new face for one that I'd seen before. My score on this measure, called the false alarm rate, was 18%. Typical rememberers, exceptional facial identifiers and prosopagnosics all have a mistaken recognition percentage of about 30% on average. So why was I misidentifying a unknown person's face for my grandma's?

Examining Potential Reasons

It was suggested that I possibly possessed some super-recognizer capabilities. Everyone has a catalogue of the faces we know in our recall, but exceptional facial identifiers – and possibly near-exceptional individuals like me – have a comparatively extensive and precise catalogue. We're also likely to distinguish countenances – that is, attribute characteristics to each face, such as amiability or rudeness. Scientific investigation suggests that the second aspect helps people to acquire and retain faces to permanent recall. While distinguishing may help me recognize people, it may also mislead me into seeing my grandmother in a woman who has a comparable demeanor.

In addition, it was believed I might be "a attentive countenance examiner", meaning I pay a lot of attention to faces. Others may have more false alarm moments, thinking they recognize someone they don't know. But because I tend to look closely at faces, I am prone to notice the stranger who looks like my grandmother. Indeed, one companion 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 stood 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 syndrome called excessive facial recognition (HFF), in which unrecognized faces appear familiar. On the surface, this sounded like it could relate to me. But the handful of reported cases all happened after a physical event such as a epileptic episode or brain attack, unlike the peculiarity that I've been observing my whole grown-up existence.

Through research sites, experts have heard from about 24,000 face-blind individuals, 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 tools like the previously seen/unfamiliar 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 frequency is quite low," one expert said of HFF. However, they theorized that there may be a range, with some people who think each countenance is recognizable, and others, like me, who only undergo it a few times a month.

{Understanding