What is special about super-recognisers?

Super-recognisers are people with an extraordinary ability to recognise faces. Yet fifteen years after the term was coined, it remains unclear what distinguishes super-recognisers from other people, how prevalent they are, how we should study them – and why. In this chapter, I provide an up-to-date snapshot of super-recogniser research that addresses these critical issues. Prior work emphasises the practical implications of super-recognisers for important real-world decisions, such as when comparing a passport to a traveller or recognising a suspect in CCTV footage. But super-recogniser research is also helping develop basic understanding of individual differences in person perception: offering a unique window into how the brain optimises face identity processing, and the systematic relationships between identity processing and a broader network of related abilities.