N. Katherine Hayles以结合科学及人文研究为名。在《不假思索：下意识的力量》一书中，她再次将不同领域的研究连结在一起，讲述“不假思索”的力量──我们的认知过程和意识是勾不上边的，但认知对意识的运作却是必要的。

作者编整了神经科学、认知科学、认知生物学与文学的新观点，扩展我们对认知的了解并阐述认知不仅仅限于意识，还包含了许多层面。如Hayles 所定义的认知，其不仅适用于人类的无意识过程也适用于所有形式的生命型态，包过单细胞生物和植物在内。令人惊讶地是，她也阐释了认知在复杂的资讯处理过程中是如何运作的：当人类和认知技术系统互动时，会形成“认知组合”，正如交通管制、无人机和金融资金贸易演算法所运用的技术，而且这些认知组合正在改变地球上的生命。Hayles称这种转变的结果为“星球认知生态学”，人类和技术操作者皆包含在内，这种转变也对人文学者及社会科学家丢出了急迫的问题。

在这个先进科学和技术将认知摊在大众眼前的时代，《不假思索：下意识的力量》反映出的是我们当前的景况，并带着所有生命走向一个更能永续发展也更蓬勃的环境。 
 
本书好评
“Traditionally, we have associated cognition with consciousness and hence only with human beings. Unthought provides evidence from neuroscience, literary studies, economics, urban planning, robotics, computer science, and other fields to demonstrate that this narrow view is not only restrictive but dangerous. Hayles shows that if we think of cognition as pattern recognition and the capacity to respond to environmental changes, then most living things and many technical devices are cognizers. This cutting-edge, one-of-a-kind book offers a model of how to mediate between science and philosophy in an intelligent and respectful way.”
(Laura Otis, author of Rethinking Thought: Inside the Minds of Creative Scientists and Artists)
 
“Hayles breaks with anthropocentric views of cognition with a framework that enmeshes biological and technical cognition. On offer here is a paradigm shift in how we think in relation to planetary cognitive ecologies, how we analyze the operations and ethical implications of human-technical assemblages, and how we imagine the role that the humanities can and should play in assessing these effects.”
(Tim Lenoir, coauthor of The Military-Entertainment Complex)
 
“No one has done more to integrate the two cultures than Katherine Hayles, and this volume is truly a signature achievement. Here she rethinks cognition, building an intricate theoretical assemblage that includes the new materialisms, neuroscience, and cognitive biology and opens up her recent analyses of ‘how we think’ to an entire planetary cognitive ecology that is as expansive as it is technically precise. It is also, importantly, deeply ethical, at a moment when the stakes for the humanities, and the world, are particularly high. Unthought marks a brilliant addition to Hayles’s astonishing corpus—and it is surely destined to become part of our conscious and critical thought.”
(Rita Raley, author of Tactical Media)
 
关于作者
N. Katherine Hayles是杜克大学的James B. Duke教授（唯有少数成就非凡的教授能获得这个头衔）。她出过许多书，较近期的著作是How We Think: Digital Media and Contemporary Technogenesis（由University of Chicago Press出版）。