APS distinguishes cognition from consciousness. Although the two may coincide in some organisms, they are not identical concepts and should not be treated as interchangeable.
In APS, cognition concerns the use of information in the regulation of activity. Organisms exhibit cognition when they detect relevant conditions, evaluate their significance, and modify behaviour or organisation in ways that contribute to viability. Processes such as sensing, memory, learning, anticipation, and adaptive regulation may therefore constitute forms of cognition even when there is no evidence of conscious experience.
Consciousness, by contrast, concerns subjective awareness, phenomenal experience, and first-person perspective. Establishing the presence of consciousness requires evidence beyond the existence of information-guided regulation alone.
APS therefore treats consciousness as a possible emergent property of some highly complex forms of cognition rather than as a prerequisite for cognition itself. A system may be cognitive without being conscious, although conscious systems are necessarily cognitive.
Evidence for cognition is not automatically evidence for consciousness or sentience.