Aging, cognition, and culture: a neuroscientific perspective Denise C. Park a, * , Angela H. Gutchess b a Beckman Institute, University of Illinois, 405 N. Matthews, Urbana, IL 61801, USA b Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, 525 East University, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1109, USA Received 6 June 2002; accepted 25 July 2002 Abstract Behavioral studies have suggested some intriguing differences across cultures in cognitive processes such as attention to context, the use of categorization, stereotypes about aging, and metamemory judgments. Moreover, there is behavioral evidence to suggest that, with age, cultural differences in cognition become less pronounced, likely due to decreased cognitive resources that may result in more similarity across cultures in cognition. The study of the neuroscience of aging, culture and cognition, although in its infancy, potentially provides insight into the contributions of experience and neurobiology to cognitive function. We review initial findings of cross-cultural behavioral aging research in light of cognitive neuroscience of aging research and consider the methodological challenges and benefits of adding a cross- cultural dimension to the study of the cognitive neuroscience of aging. q 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Aging; Culture; Neuroimaging; Plasticity; Cognition 1. Introduction There is a compelling and growing literature suggesting that cultural milieu affects cognitive processes in important ways. On one hand, the notion that cognitive processes are culturally bound entities is surprising to most cognitive scientists who tend to focus on commonalities in mental processes across individuals. On the other hand, these same scientists are keenly interested in the role that stimulus characteristics and conditions play in differentiating and controlling cognitive processes within individuals. If one considers the culture in which an individual functions as a relatively stable context in which cognition occurs and accepts that there are substantive differences in cultures, the notion that complex culture-bound stimuli and contexts shape cognitive function is not so surprising. There is broad agreement that experience can shape both cognitive processes and even neural organization. For example, there is evidence that taxicab drivers have more posterior hippocampal volume than nondrivers, presumably because the experience of thousands of hours of wayfinding has resulted in neural development of spatially sensitive areas [23]. Similarly, Polk and Farah [36] reported that Canadian postal workers, who sort mail based on postal codes comprised of letters and numbers, respond to letters and numbers as if they belong to a single category in a ‘pop-out’ experiment. It appears that their experiences sorting mail has resulted in reorganization of two basic categories (digits/letters) into a single category. In a more recent study, Polk and colleagues [37] reported evidence that letters and digits of similar shapes were processed in neurally segregated areas of the brain. This neural segregation could only have resulted from experience and not evolution, given the arbitrary and socially prescribed assignment of items to the letter versus digit categories. Thus, the evidence that environment or experience shapes cognition and even neural organization and structures would suggest that cultural values and practices could also have effects. Perhaps the best way to understand the effects of culture on behavior and neural organization is to compare cultures hypothesized to be different in some fundamental neurocognitive process. Such cross-cultural comparisons allow one to isolate the plasticity of neural organization and behavioral responses as a result of immersion in one culture compared to another, and permit an understanding of differences in the cognitive lens for organizing experiences across cultures. In the present paper, we adopt a cross-cultural approach to the development of a neuroscience of aging and culture. 0149-7634/02/$ - see front matter q 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S0149-7634(02)00072-6 Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews 26 (2002) 859–867 www.elsevier.com/locate/neubiorev * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: denisep@uiuc.edu (D.C. Park), denise@umich.edu (D.C. Park), anghall@umich.edu (A.H. Gutchess).