When you hear the word Super-Recognizer, you may think of comic-book-hero-esque agents searching the underground to find people who went missing decades ago. Compared to this fantasy, the reality seems somewhat less exciting. Super-Recognizers (SRs) were initially reported a decade ago as a collateral while developing tests for developmental prosopagnosia. Today, the topic of SRs sparks interest from groups seeking to enhance scientific knowledge, public safety, or their monetary gain. With no immediate consequences of erroneous SR-identification, there has been no pressure to establish a clear SR-definition. This promotes heterogenous empirical evidence and the proliferation of unsupported claims in the media. Not only is this status quo unfortunate, it stands in opposition to the potential of special populations – both for science and application. SRs are a special population with imminent real-world value that can advance our understanding of brain functioning. To exploit their potential, I propose a needed formal framework for SR-diagnosis, and introduce 70 cases identified based hereupon. These cases represent the core of a growing SR cohort, studied in my lab in the course of a long-term, multi-methodological research agenda involving academic and government collaborators. Finally, I provide recommendations for those interested in SR work, and highlight current caveats and future challenges.

当您听到“超级识别器”这个词时，您可能会想到漫画书英雄式的特工在地下搜寻几十年前失踪的人。与这种幻想相比，现实似乎有些不那么令人兴奋。十年前，超级识别器（SR）最初被报道为开发发育性面盲症测试的附属品。如今，SR 主题引发了寻求增强科学知识、公共安全或金钱收益的团体的兴趣。由于错误的 SR 识别不会立即产生后果，因此没有建立明确的 SR 定义的压力。这促进了不同的经验证据和媒体中未经证实的主张的扩散。这种现状不仅令人遗憾，而且与特殊人群的科学和应用潜力相悖。SR 是一个特殊群体，具有迫在眉睫的现实价值，可以增进我们对大脑功能的理解。为了挖掘它们的潜力，我提出了一个必要的 SR 诊断的正式框架，并介绍了据此确定的 70 个案例。这些案例代表了不断增长的 SR 群体的核心，我的实验室在涉及学术和政府合作者的长期、多方法研究议程的过程中对这些案例进行了研究。最后，我为那些对 SR 工作感兴趣的人提供建议，并强调当前的注意事项和未来的挑战。