Editing Ritualization (section)

===Recent studies===
More recently scholars interested in the [[cognitive science of religion]] such as [[Pascal Boyer]], [[Pierre Liénard]], and William W. McCorkle, Jr. have been involved in experimental, ethnographic, and archival research on how ritualized actions might inform the study of ritualization and ritual forms of action. Boyer, Liénard, and McCorkle argue that ritualized compulsions are in relation to an evolved cognitive architecture where social, cultural, and environmental selection pressures stimulate "hazard-precaution" systems such as predation, contagion, and disgust in human minds.<ref>Boyer, Pascal. ''The Naturalness of Religious Ideas.'' University of California Press, 1994</ref><ref>Boyer, Pascal. ''[[Religion Explained|Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought.]]'' Basic Books, 2001</ref><ref>Boyer, Pascal. "Religious Thought and Behavior as By-Products of Brain Functions," Trends in Cognitive Sciences, vol 7, pp 119–24</ref><ref>Boyer, P and Liénard, P. "Why ritualized behavior? Precaution Systems and action parsing in developmental, pathological and cultural rituals .” Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 29: 595–650.</ref> McCorkle argued that these ritualized compulsions (especially in regard to dead bodies vis-à-vis, mortuary behavior) were turned into ritual scripts by professional guilds only several thousand years ago with advancement in technology such as the domestication of plants and animals, literacy, and writing.<ref>McCorkle Jr., William W. "Ritualizing the Disposal of the Deceased: From Corpse to Concept." Peter Lang, 2010.</ref>