Are importance weights sensitive to the range of alternatives in multi-attribute utility measurement?

Scaling factors in multiattribute utility measurements can either be assessed directly as importance weights or indirectly by indifference judgements. To examine the range sensitivity of importance weight judgements two experiments were designed. The results of these experiments suggest that subjects have plausible ranges in mind when assessing importance weights and that they are unwilling to change weights after relatively spurious changes in the alternative set.