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Elicited preferences for health states vary among scaling methods, manners of describing health states, and other features of the elicitation process. The authors examined the effects of changing the search procedure for a subject's utility on mean utility values. A randomized controlled trial of two search procedures (titration and "ping-pong") using two otherwise identical computer programs that describe health states related to Gaucher's disease, then measuring subjects' preferences. Paid, healthy volunteers recruited from the community through advertisements. Re sults. The mean time tradeoff (TTO) and standard gamble (SG) utility values for life with severe anemia and splenomegaly and life with chronic bone pain from Gaucher's disease were between 0.10 and 0.15 higher with the titration search procedure than with the ping-pong procedure. Effects of the search procedure were …