With world population senescence and globalization, more present-day older adults will evince cognitive aging that is influenced over a longer life span by a wide range of social practices and motivational beliefs from cultural groups across the world. Although there is no dispute that brain structure and function aggregate biological and experiential influences, a useful framework is still needed regarding the specific neural mechanisms underlying the exchange between biology and experience with age, and the effect on cognition. We introduce a predictive coding framework of the aging cognitive brain that views the older brain as making predictions about the environment based on a lifetime of experience in it. The influence of cultural experiences in shaping the aging predictive brain then reflects individual differences in processing social signals about appropriate or inappropriate behaviors and cognitive styles amid neural resources changes. We briefly annotate relevant findings on age effects and cultural differences in neurocognitive processing. We further review findings showing that cultural cognitive differences are present in children, persist in young adulthood, and are either maintained or accentuated in older adulthood. Finally, we consider that the predictive aging brain is an enculturated one, reflecting the accumulation of a lifetime of experiences that have fortified culture-specific modes of thought and neural processing in older adults.
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