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

During my twenties, I noticed my grandma through the window of a coffee house. I felt stunned – she had passed away the previous year. I gazed for a moment, then remembered it couldn't be her.

I'd had analogous experiences all through my life. Periodically, I "knew" an individual I didn't know. At times I could rapidly identify who the stranger resembled – like my grandma. On other occasions, a face simply had a subtle recognition I couldn't identify.

Examining the Variety of Facial Recognition Experiences

Lately, I started wondering if other people have these peculiar situations. When I questioned my acquaintances, one said she often sees people in random places who look recognizable. Others sometimes mistake a unfamiliar individual or famous person for someone they know in real life. But some mentioned completely different responses – they could effortlessly recognize people they'd met and people they hadn't.

I felt fascinated by this range of experiences. Was it just longing that made me see my elderly relative that day – or some kind of cognitive error? Research has found we spend about 14 minutes of every hour looking at faces – do we just make mistakes sometimes? I was starting to understand that we can all see the same face but not experience the same thing.

Understanding the Spectrum of Person Recognition Capacities

Scientists have developed many evaluations to assess the ability to recall faces. There exists a broad spectrum: at one extreme are exceptional facial identifiers, who recall faces they have seen only momentarily or a long time ago; at the other are people with prosopagnosia, who often find it challenging to recognize family, close friends and even themselves.

Some evaluations also capture how skilled someone is at telling if they have not seen a face before. This is where I think I am deficient. But scientists "haven't thoroughly investigated this" as much as they've studied the skill to recall a face, according to neuroscience experts. It does seem that the two abilities use different brain processes; for example, there is indication 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.

Taking Person Recognition Assessments

I felt intrigued whether these tests would offer understanding on why unfamiliar individuals look recognizable. Was I someone who never forgets a face? I often recall people more than they recognize me, and feel disappointed – a sentiment that researchers say is frequent for super-recognizers. But maybe I over-recognize faces – to the extent that even some new faces look familiar.

I was sent several facial recognition tests. I worked through them, feeling puzzled at times. In one, called the memory for faces evaluation, I had to look at monochrome photos of a face from three angles, then find it in arrays. During another test that told me to pick out celebrities from a mix of photos, many of the faces felt at least familiar, but I couldn't quite place them – reminiscent to my actual experience.

I felt uncertain about my performance. But after analysis of my performance, I had accurately recognized 96% of the famous person faces. The conclusion was that I qualified as a "borderline super-recognizer".

Comprehending Incorrect Identification Frequencies

I also did exceptionally in the known/unknown countenances task, which was described as notably useful for assessing someone's memory for faces. The test-taker looks at a collection of 60 grayscale photos, each of a separate face. Then they examine a sequence of 120 analogous photos – the initial collection plus 60 new faces – and indicate 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 extreme of the range, people with face blindness properly recognize an average of 57%.

I felt satisfied with my performance, but also astonished. I recalled many of the old faces, but infrequently confused a unfamiliar countenance for one that I'd seen before. My score on this measure, called the mistaken recognition percentage, was 18%. Normal recognizers, superior face rememberers and those with facial agnosia all have a incorrect identification frequency of about 30% on average. So why was I misidentifying a unknown person's face for my grandma's?

Examining Possible Explanations

It was suggested that I probably possessed some superior face rememberer capacities. Everyone has a database of the faces we know in our memory, but exceptional facial identifiers – and likely almost superior rememberers like me – have a relatively large and high-resolution catalogue. We're also likely to individuate faces – that is, attribute qualities to each face, such as amiability or rudeness. Scientific investigation suggests that the later element helps people to acquire and retain faces to enduring recollection. While distinguishing may help me recall people, it may also deceive 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 considerable notice to faces. Others may have more incorrect identification moments, thinking they know someone they don't know. But because I tend to look carefully at faces, I am disposed to notice the stranger 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.

Examining Hyperfamiliarity for Faces

These assessments helped me understand where I stood on the spectrum. But I wanted to understand more about what is happening in the brain when we "recognize" unfamiliar individuals. Researching further, I read about a disorder called excessive facial recognition (HFF), in which unfamiliar faces appear familiar. Initially, this sounded like it could relate to me. But the handful of recorded occurrences all took place after a health incident such as a seizure or cerebral accident, unlike the quirk that I've been experiencing my whole grown-up existence.

Through investigative websites, experts have heard from about 24,000 prosopagnosics, 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 tools like the known/unknown countenances task and the facial recall assessment.

Experts have heard from only a handful of people with potential HFF in long durations of research.

"The prevalence is quite low," one expert said of HFF. However, they hypothesized that there may be a spectrum, with some people who think every face is familiar, and others, like me, who only experience it a multiple instances a month.

{Understanding