Relevance. The results of the interaction of man and the environment are fixed and function in the mind with the help of signs and symbols. The need to study the patterns of mastering the subject content presented in a symbolic form, as well as socialization in general, makes it important to appeal to the fundamental question of the correlation of symbolic function with the structure and work of consciousness.

Objective. This article represents the processual model of consciousness allowing to consider the symbolic function as a moving force of human connection with the surrounding world. The essence of this connection is cognitive. 

Methods. Analysis, synthesis and modeling. The study was carried out in the concept of a semiotic approach.

Results. Social origin of consciousness allows to model its structure. The following components of consciousness can be distinguished: the sensual fabric of an image; biodynamic fabric of the movement and action; meaning; sense.  

The symbolic function should be studied within the concept of the processual model consciousness. Logic of processual model imposes studying of signs and symbols moving from the separate nominal condition through the systemic organization to the reflection.

Conclusions. Consciousness can be studied through the processual model, where the main characteristic of its elements is the interaction and mediation by signs and symbols. The primacy of a sign or symbol is determined by the degree of orientation of the subject in the situation. The transition of a sign into a symbol occurs as a result of the inclusion of a separate sign in an increasing number of sign-symbolic systems. This is possible in the process of personal temporal and spatial inclusion in the general vector of the “chronotope”.

The method of intelligent processes formation by P.Ya. Galperin takes as principal a depiction of structure of activity hidden from sense but existing as objective reality. A problem of logic bases and sources as well as of the structure of mental actions is point at issue of the article. Compared are the of the philosophers’ views (Plato, Aristotle, Meister Eckhart, Hegel) and of psychologist’s (J. Piaget, L. Vygotsky, A.N. Leontiev) on the grounds of mental structures determination. Unsolved problems of mental actions determination are emphasized.