If you see someone's face, do you remember them forever?
If so, you could be a super-recognizer.
The condition was only just recognized a few years ago, and it's estimated that only about 1-2% of people have the uncanny ability.
Researchers from Harvard University and University College London identified four subjects who claimed they were super-recognizers in a 2009 study.
These super-recognizers all described instances when they recognized complete strangers years after seeing them for the first time.
And this gift can be used to catch criminals. Just using security camera footage, UK police officer Gary Collins identified 190 people in the 2011 London riots that he had seen previously in person or in a police database — four times more than any other officer, the BBC reported.
Researchers from the University of Greenwich in England are hoping to find more super-recognizers so they can understand what is special about their brains and how they can identify people so accurately, and potentially use that knowledge to solve more crimes.
So they've developed a test for people to see if they are super-recognizers. They say it takes only five minutes, but it took me about 10.
The test shows you a black-and-white photo of a man while a timer counts down the seconds you have left to remember his face.
Then the test asks you to pick him out of a lineup, like this one:
All of the questions ask you to identify white men. Unfortunately, I only got nine right out of 14, so I am not a super-recognizer.
But maybe you are. Take the test here to find out >
