Beach or car? Image circulating on the Internet confuses users

Beach or car: a photo posted on Twitter is puzzling users of the social network. Although most people see a beach at night, under a stormy sky, the image, according to the author of the post, actually portrays the damaged door of a car. The publication was made on the 2nd, but it is still provoking debate about optical illusion and brain functioning in social networks.

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Beach or car? Image generates debate among Twitter users – Photo: Reproduction / Twitter

The post was made by the user @nxyxm and had over 2,000 retweets and 4,500 likes to date. «If you can see a beach, ocean skies, rocks and stars, then you are an artist,» says the text in the post, «but this is not a painting, but the bottom part of a car door that needs to be repaired, ”wrote the tweet’s author.

Even after the revelation, users had difficulty seeing the car door. The author of the post tried to help: “It’s a car door. The fence panel below it is damaged and scratched, which gives the illusion of water on the shore ”, he explained.

@nxyxm is Muhammad Nayem, a Pakistani fashion designer. To dnetc, Nayem explained that the car in the photo does not belong to him and that he made the image at random, but posted it on Twitter because he saw that there was an optical illusion. After the viral, he gained more than 1,000 new followers, many international. «At first, few people understood the image, but after so many comments and theories, they were intrigued and started calling it ‘the best illusion image of all time’,» he highlights.

Some netizens attributed the divergence in the interpretation of the photo to brain functioning. According to this theory, whoever sees a beach would be commanded by the right side of the brain, responsible for creativity. Those who see the car door, on the other hand, would have the left side more pointed and would be more logical and analytical people.

The explanation, in this case, would be the same that went viral in the case of «green and gray or pink and white sneakers», in which the chain shared with the photo brought the theory of both sides of the brain. At the time, physician Rafael Monteiro, a neurologist at Hospital Samaritano, explained to dnetc that the theory has no scientific proof: «it is more an optical illusion than to do with the brain’s hemispheres», he guaranteed.

In the case of the car door, another possible explanation is the fact that, without context, the brain tries to reconcile what it is seeing with the reference of something similar that is in memory. According to a Reddit forum user, this is how art works. «How is it that a painting on a canvas is a real beach? Our brain interprets it as such, looking for things it recognizes. And this car gate seen up close works the same way. Our brain is looking for something recognizable» explained the user Beingabummer. «The only difference between a painting and this photo is that the painting intentionally portrays a beach and this photo does not,» he added. In the same discussion, itty53, another participant of the forum added: «You already wait, ‘this is an image of a beach’. This is your first impression».

Optical illusions like this often go viral on social media. Who doesn’t remember the famous party dress that “changed color”? Some people saw the white and gold garment; others, blue and black. Another similar mystery that was successful on the internet was that of green and gray or pink and white sneakers. There was also the controversy of the “invisible car”, which intrigued Internet users in 2018.