Abstract conceptualisation

Importantly individuals may have a preference for which of the four stages they prefer. Those who favour active experimentation will prefer to play with the system, discover for themselves what the available functions do, make mistakes and learn from how the system responds. Abstract conceptualisers on the other hand will prefer to read the user manual, access on-line help and discuss the characteristics of the system from a more theoretical perspective. A training programme which facilitates a mixture of learning styles is likely to be more effective in gaining information retention across a group. 

Another way to express the idea limned is to say that proteins experience evolutionary pressure as physical objects and not as abstract representations of molecular sequences. We may understand evolution as changes in the lettering of sequences, but this is far from how it occurs in practice. Likewise, we can only conceptualise protein functions at high organisational levels, where they can be interpreted as directly influencing the fecundity of the whole organism. 

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