Relevance. The article discusses the relationship between the development of joint (shared) attention of a child with an adult, and the social and cognitive development of the child. Based on previous studies of typically developing children that demonstrate their participation and responsiveness to fundamental social characteristics, it is significant to identify manifestations of atypical joint attention when a child does not register which object (event) or which aspects of this object (event) are the focus of an interlocutor's attention. The question of which aspects of joint attention are related to the normative development of the child makes this relevant for comparing groups with different forms of atypical development. For the study, the main indicator of understanding the intentions of the other in the direction of view was used, as one of the aspects of joint attention.

Objective. To compare the development of social cognition and joint attention among typically developing children and children with various forms of atypical development in order to identify the correlation between the theory of mind and cognitive lesion.

Methods. In a sample of preschool children with typical development and of those with mental retardation, hearing impairment, speech impairment, or visual impairment (N = 90), the following methods were used to evaluate the children's understanding of the intentions, desires, and interests of others by their behavioral manifestations: “Test for Erroneous Opinion”, “Sally-Ann”; the “What does Charlie want?” task, and others. The task was also used to assess the child’s ability to use the direction of a character’s gaze in a picture to determine the person’s intentions.

Results. We identified the “primary psychological” characteristics of the atypical development of the child, which prioritize violations of social communication. Several variations of the violation of joint attention were singled out by determining a person’s intentions by the direction of their gaze. It was shown that determining intentions by the direction of gaze is associated with the normative age formation of the child. Symptoms of deficiency in this skill vary depending on the specifics of the child’s atypical development.

Conclusions. Secondary deviations in the development of social cognition are specific to a particular primary defect. The limited inflow of information in the event of a violation of the analyzer creates unusual conditions in the children’s accumulation of the experience of social interaction that is necessary to form a mental model.

Relevance. There are set of terms and theories, that describe human`s experience of interaction with the outside world. This leads to difficulties in comparing and analyzing the results of empirical studies of human representations of the world. This phenomenon is clearly manifested in the study of human concepts of the personal computer, actively developed by psychologists and specialists in human-computer interfaces design.

Objective. In this work we pretend to explain the requirements for empirical study of personal computers mental models (MM) structure in the framework of cultural-activity paradigm, based on the analysis of the history of MM research in various areas of cognitive psychology and cultural activity approach.

Results. We discussed the main approaches to the study of mental models in psychology, characteristics of MM and specificity of methods of their study. The concept of MM is compared with similar constructs developed in various areas of psychology: "cognitive map", "scheme", "mental representation", "meaning", "image of the world". We also analyzed the possibility of operationalization of this construct. The MM concept are compared with the A.N. Leontiev`s concept of the «image of the world» and features of the MM researches in cultural activity paradigm was showed. The concept of MM is discussed in the context of different approaches to the study of meanings in linguistics and psychology: the approach of fixed meanings and research of embodied cognition. Finally, we describe the main characteristics of MM, which should be taken into account to plan an empirical study of human representations of personal computers.

Conclusion. In the construction of empirical research of personal computer`s MM we should require special attention to such characteristics of MM, as their consistency, cultural dependency and integrity; methods of such study should take into account the own activity of the subject.