The basic format of the test was to place one individual in a group of eight other people. Unbeknownst to the one individual, the other participants has been instructed to answer all questions intentionally and unanimously false. The group was provided with a set of lines, which differed in lengths ranging from 1/2" to 1 3/4".
When the group was asked simple questions concerning the relative lengths of the lines (for example, "Which of these lines is longest?"), the individual under study was faced with having a majority of people blatantly contradict what his own senses were telling him to be true. The result of this conflict was that, as the spiral of silence theory would predict, nearly one third of all the individuals gave "wrong" answers that matched what everyone else in the group was responding. However, despite what the theory may hold, the experimenters found that 68% of the subject responded with the "correct" answer, despite obvious confusion and uneasiness with going against the majority's opinion.
After the series of questions was completed, the experimenters conducted an interview of the subject to discover why they responded the way they did. Interestingly, among those who chose wrong answers and agreed with the rest of the group, some admitted that they feared expressing an opinion contrary to everyone else's, and so decided to give an answer they didn't believe. However, some of the respondents expressed that they truly believed that the answer they gave was correct - showing that the were so influenced by the group's opinion that they somehow misinterpreted what their senses were telling them.
After these initial results, Asch conducted another series of experiments, this time changing certain elements. For example, sometimes, he placed two individuals, instead of just one, into the same situation. Other time, one member of the group was instructed to disagree with the rest of the group, to provide support for the subject individual. Other variations of this type were tested also. Asch explains the various results each of these changes had.
Additionally, although the results from the various experiments were novel, as a whole, I question the ability of them to apply to universal situations. I feel that several characteristics of the experiments limit it's practicality and ability to be applied to much more than extremely similar situations. For example, all of the subjects in the experiment were male college students. This obviously leave a large question as to how individuals of different ages, gender, and education would respond. Additionally, the very fact that the questions that were asked were about non earth shattering things, like the length of lines, makes me wonder how people will respond when the questions and answers are more important. Overall, I view the tests as a good start, but hardly a complete test of the spiral of silence theory.