Because you're unsure of what's right, you use other people's estimates as information. Some participants brought back after one year. The information that participants received from their group changed their perceptions of how much the line moved. We socially construct a less ambiguous reality out of ambiguous circumstances. A bunch of confederates and one participant sit around a large table.
Task is to pick which of three lines is comparable in length to a standard line.
Participant must decide to go along with the group or say the answer that appears obviously correct. Reduction indicates that normative influence was at work in the Asch studies. Even our perceptions of relatively unambiguous stimuli are socially constructed. Others influence how we see the world. Social influence can make the unambiguous ambiguous.