A viral photo of a Coca-Cola can is circulating on social media, which has confused and driven people crazy. Most are convinced that they are seeing a red can, but that is actually not true.

Look at the photo and answer – what do you see?

“Do you see a red Coca-Cola can? Zoom in on the red parts. Yes, there are no red pixels. You are seeing what you expect to see,” wrote a Twitter user next to the photo that confused many.

The comments were not lacking:

“This hurts my eyes”, “My brain is exploding”, “Strange”, “This is incredible” – users write.

Why do we see a red can?
This optical illusion works because of the way the brain processes colors and contrasts. The lattice effect creates a visual trick, while the brain uses previous experience and expectations to “correct” the image.

Because we know that a Coca-Cola can is usually red, the brain automatically compensates for the color, even though the actual tones in the image are blue and green.

Also, red and blue are complementary colors, so the brain unconsciously creates the illusion of red where it actually isn’t.

This combination of recognizable shape, contrast, and perceptual adaptation causes us to see a classic red can, even though it isn’t there.

A similar phenomenon occurs with the famous photograph of strawberries, where people see red even though it isn’t there.