Gazing at a Stranger and See a Known Individual: Might I Qualify as a Super-Recognizer?

During my young adulthood, I spotted my grandma through the pane of a café. I felt stunned – she had departed the year before. I looked intently for a moment, then reminded myself it was impossible to be her.

I'd had similar situations throughout my life. Occasionally, I "knew" an individual I was unacquainted with. At times I could rapidly pinpoint who the unknown individual looked like – for instance my elderly relative. Other times, a face simply had a vague familiarity I couldn't identify.

Investigating the Variety of Face Identification Capabilities

Lately, I began questioning if others have these odd encounters. When I inquired my friends, one said she frequently sees persons in random places who look known. Others sometimes mistake a stranger or famous person for someone they know in real life. But some mentioned nothing of the kind – they could effortlessly identify people they'd met and people they hadn't.

I felt curious by this spectrum of responses. 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 err sometimes? I was beginning to realize that we can all see the same face but not interpret the same thing.

Understanding the Range of Person Recognition Capacities

Researchers have designed many assessments to measure the ability to remember faces. There exists a wide range: at one end are exceptional facial identifiers, who recall faces they have seen only momentarily or a distant past; at the other are people with facial agnosia, who often have difficulty to know kin, close friends and even themselves.

Some tests also assess how proficient someone is at telling if they have not seen a face before. This is where I think I have limitations. But researchers "haven't thoroughly investigated this" as much as they've examined the ability to recall a face, according to brain researchers. It does seem that the two skills use different brain processes; for instance, there is proof that superior face rememberers and those with facial agnosia do about as well as each other at discerning new faces, despite their extremely distinct abilities to recall old faces.

Undergoing Facial Recognition Evaluations

I felt intrigued whether these assessments would shed some light on why strangers look familiar. Was I someone who never forgets a face? I often recognize people more than they recognize me, and feel let down – a emotion that experts say is typical for superior face rememberers. But maybe I over-recognize faces – to the degree that even some new faces look recognizable.

I received several person recognition tests. I worked through them, feeling confused at times. In one, called the facial recall assessment, I had to look at grayscale photos of a face from multiple perspectives, then find it in arrays. During another test that directed me to pick out famous people from a mix of photos, many of the faces felt at least recognizable, but I couldn't exactly identify them – similar to my real-life experience.

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

Comprehending False Alarm Rates

I also did exceptionally in the old/new faces task, which was described as particularly good for evaluating someone's recognition for faces. The subject looks at a sequence of 60 black-and-white photos, each of a separate face. Then they examine a sequence of 120 similar photos – the first group plus 60 unknown visages – and specify which were in the original collection. The exceptional facial identifier threshold is roughly 80%; I recognized 78% of the faces I'd seen. On the other end of the spectrum, people with prosopagnosia correctly guess an average of 57%.

I felt content with my result, but also surprised. I recalled many of the old faces, but rarely mistook a unknown visage for one that I'd seen before. My result on this indicator, called the incorrect identification frequency, 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 grandma's?

Investigating Plausible Reasons

It was theorized that I probably possessed some exceptional facial identifier capabilities. Everyone has a catalogue of the faces we know in our recall, but exceptional facial identifiers – and probably borderline straddlers like me – have a relatively large and detailed catalogue. We're also probably to individuate faces – that is, ascribe characteristics to each face, such as amiability or discourtesy. Research suggests that the latter helps people to develop and commit faces to permanent recall. While individuating may help me remember people, it may also deceive me into seeing my elderly relative in a woman who has a analogous presence.

In addition, it was believed I might be "an active face perceiver", meaning I pay a significant focus to faces. Others may have more mistaken recognition moments, thinking they know someone they don't know. But because I tend to look attentively at faces, I am inclined to notice the unfamiliar individual who looks like my elderly relative. Indeed, one friend who said she doesn't make face identification mistakes admitted she doesn't really look at the people around her.

Examining Excessive Recognition 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 "know" unfamiliar individuals. Examining further, I read about a condition called hyperfamiliarity for faces (HFF), in which unrecognized faces appear familiar. Superficially, this sounded like it could pertain to me. But the few of documented instances all occurred after a medical episode such as a convulsion or brain attack, unlike the peculiarity that I've been experiencing my whole adult life.

Through scientific platforms, experts have heard from about 24,000 face-blind individuals, as well as people with all kinds of facial recognition problems, 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 few of people with possible HFF in many years of research.

"The occurrence rate 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 recognizable, and others, like me, who only undergo it a few times a month.

{Understanding