The research reported here uses a methodological approach which is quite common in Artificial Life research but still relatively novel in (computational) linguistics: Rather than attempting to develop simulations that generate natural phenomena directly, as one does when using Newton's equations to simulate the trajectory of a ball falling from a tower, we engage in computational simulations and robotic experiments that create (new) artificial phenomena that have some of the characteristics of natural phenomena and hence are seen as explaining them.
we implement artificial agents with components modeling certain cognitive operations (such as introducing a new syntactic category, computing an analogy between two events, etc.