---
title: "Cognitive Nonconscious"
description: "N. Katherine Hayles's term, from her 2017 book Unthought, for the lowest tier of her three-part model of human cognition."
type: "glossary-term"
canonical_url: "https://antikythera.wiki/terms/cognitive-nonconscious"
md_url: "https://antikythera.wiki/md/terms/cognitive-nonconscious"
last_updated: "2026-09-06"
site: "Antikythera Wiki"
---

# Cognitive Nonconscious

> A working definition written for this wiki from the reading notes; not Antikythera's own wording. From Antikythera Wiki (https://antikythera.wiki/terms/cognitive-nonconscious), an independent guide to Antikythera's published work.

[N. Katherine Hayles](https://antikythera.wiki/people/n-katherine-hayles)'s term, from her 2017 book Unthought, for the lowest tier of her three-part model of human cognition. Below conscious thinking and the implicit cognition that runs learned motor skills lies a layer that detects patterns and anticipates faster than awareness: subjects learn regularities in visual noise they cannot describe, and people sidestep a snake before consciousness registers it. She relays speculation that this layer is evolutionarily older than consciousness. In Modes of Cognition, where she mostly writes "nonconscious cognition," it does argumentative work: if nonconscious processes are cognitive, consciousness cannot be a criterion for cognition, which clears the way for the SIRAL test and for counting plants, bacteria, and large language models as cognitive systems despite an awareness she declines to call consciousness. Cavalli's compendium paper extends it into cognitive assemblages spanning humans and technical systems; [Chen Qiufan](https://antikythera.wiki/people/chen-qiufan)'s Offload Syndrome dramatizes the layer captured by algorithms.

## Appears in

- [Cognition With and Beyond the Brain: Assemblages, Endosomatization, and AI-Driven Sensory Technologies](https://antikythera.wiki/work/journal/coginfra/cognition-with-and-beyond-the-brain) (2025-05-10)
- [Modes of Cognition](https://antikythera.wiki/work/journal/modesofcognition) (2025-05-10)

_Glossary generated 2026-09-06._