Initially the viewer, presuming she has 20-20 vision, will see either a duck or a rabbit. In either case she will be correct, since the drawing is done intentionally to represent both. Her eyes have done their job, by perceiving the physical attributes of the image accurately. If I see a duck, my brain immediately registers the image as a duck, and I will, out of habit, stop looking for any further revelation. Now, if I see a firetruck instead, or a cathode ray-tube, I can see how my sense of vision might be deemed deficient. If I don't know the presenter's reason for showing me the drawing, it's probably simply a matter of luck as to which image will register first: the duck or the rabbit.
In any random group of viewers, assuming they all have 20-20 vision, some will see a rabbit, some a duck. If the viewer knows what is afoot, then she applies her brain and her eyes accordingly, and will eventually, in most cases, make out both images. Bottom line, and this is the part which is hardest for me to put across since I am no good with technical language or terminology, is that, assuming the viewer has 20-20 vision, she will see the actual, concrete information on the page (or screen) correctly. The rest is a matter of how her brain interprets the information-- a matter of intelligence, imagination, disposition, experience, predilections, what have you.
To an illiterate person, written language is merely a random smattering of lines and curves and loops. In this case, it's not his sense of vision which is deficient. He's seeing the same thing the literate person sees. He merely lacks the acquired ability to interpret those lines and curves and loops into sounds and thereby into words and language. And it goes for any of us who are ignorant of a foreign language. If someone speaks Burmese to me, all I will hear are random utterances. As far as concerns strictly the sense of hearing, I am hearing the same sounds as the person who understands Burmese and is able to interpret those sounds properly.
If we pick a thousand people at random and point out a kitchen table to them, anyone with normal eyesight will identify the object as a table. I daresay you would have great difficulty finding someone with normal vision who will identify the object as a tree or a ladder. By and large, our perceptions of the external world are remarkably consistent. Simple communication would be next to impossible if this were not the case. Granted, many people have poor eyesight, poor hearing, in various degrees. Without my glasses I would not be able to drive, for example; but, thanks to man's determination and ingenuity, I am able to put on my glasses and see normally.
Anyone would agree that the senses are fallible, deficient, to various degrees, and even if a person has 20-20 vision, I will grant that he can and often will see objects incompletely, incorrectly; but I don't see how that needs to cast us into any genuine philosophical doubts about the reality of the external world, or the actuality of the objects we perceive, however inaccurately. The human race has been around for a long time: a short time in relation to the cosmos perhaps, but a long enough time, certainly, for us to collectively recognize that our perceptions and interpretations of the world around us are, as I said, remarkably consistent. Civilization, language, communication, art, science, philosophy, are entirely dependent upon, not to mention the result of, such consistency.
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