The process of establishing national education in Great Britain in the late 19th century demanded acceptance of cardinal measures on revising the system of primary education in general, changing the approaches to training and education of children and teacher training. A wide network of teacher training colleges required manuals on pedagogical psychology for elementary school teachers. Alexander Bain and James Sully were the first to develop the issues of pedagogical psychology in Great Britain. Psychology and pedagogical views of Alexander Bain can be found in the works “Education as a Science“, “Psychology“. Psychological ideas of James Sully are reflected in the works “The Teacher’s Handbook of Psychology“, “Studies of Childhood“, “Pedagogical Psychology“. In the works of the British scientists, a wide range of pedagogical psychology issues are presented: from lesson organization issues to problems of professional and basic qualities of teachers. Ideas on the value of a reflection and empathy as factors of efficacy of pedagogical activity were innovative ideas, for psychology and pedagogical science of the 19th century; readiness and ability of the teacher for self-control as basis of efficiency of training and education processes; on the value of communicative, organizing and pedagogical abilities of the teacher, etc. First mentioned in Alexander Bain and James Sully’s works, many ideas find reflection in works of modern scholars.

The aim of this study is to analyse the cognitive processes functioning and development. Nevertheless, another particular goal is to analyse logical thinking functioning and development. Within this research they are analysed as the open nonequilibrium self-developing systems whose behaviour is determined by the complex inter-relationships between external and internal determinants.

Three groups of factors, which should be included in any postnonclassical determination model, are represented by three groups of research objectives: 1) studying intrinsic laws of cognitive mental processes (and structure) functioning and developing as an integrated system; describing its equilibrium (relatively stable) and nonequilibrium conditions; 2) studying the interrelationship of the external and internal determinants, dynamic and statistic types of causal relationships in the cognitive operation and development processes in equilibrium and nonequilibrium phases; 3) studying the influence of the external determinants and describing the cognitive system change mechanisms during its transfer process to a new level of development.

This approach clarifies and complicates the conventional perspective of the relationship between learning and development, whereas the mental processes development is deemed as exclusively determined either from outside (training) or from inside (development). Within this approach it is possible to describe in detail the working mechanisms of the so-called «zone of proximal development».

As a result of theoretical analysis, all three research tasks groups are specified using logical thinking development context. A hypothesis states that the content of objects and knowledge about objects, which are determined by the cultural and social environment and which are imparted in the training process, may be the external cause of forming and developing thinking of a human individual (its composition and structure). Moreover, the content of objects and knowledge about objects may launch self-organization process of the logical thinking system elements in accordance with its potential for self-development.

Design of experimental verification of the proposed determination model efficacy is described in details and theoretically justified using the development material of the preschoolers logical thinking.

An analysis of the cultural and historical theory of L. Vygotsky is considered. It is shown that in its essence this theory belongs to non-classical psychology. The main ideas concerning the development of the human individual in education put forward by scientists in the framework of this theory are considered.