The Impact of Christmas Cracker Gags Do to The Brain?

"How much did Father Christmas's sleigh cost? Zero, it was on the house."

This quip is met by groans that resonate through a storage facility in the capital.

We're at a humor-evaluation session with a company that produces products for gatherings. Its repertoire features festive crackers.

The firm's owner grins, almost sheepishly at the joke. But the joke has been selected and will appear in upcoming crackers.

"You measure the joke by the number of groans and the loudness of the groans around the table," she explains.

The key to a great holiday cracker pun is not the same as a good gag in itself. It is entirely about the setting - in this case, the shared laughter of the holiday dinner table with grandparents, children and potentially neighbours.

"The goal is for the gag to be something that unites the child together with the 80-year-old," she adds.

The Science Behind Communal Amusement

Gathering to enjoy shared amusement is not only ancient, experts argue, it is likely to be older than humanity.

"Therefore when you are chuckling with others around the holiday dinner you are engaging in what's almost certainly a really ancient mammalian social sound," says a neuroscience expert.

Shared laughter, she says, helps make and maintain social connections between people.

Researchers have discovered that a absence of these social exchanges can seriously harm both psychological and bodily health.

"Those you talk to, and laugh with, it leads to enhanced amounts of 'happy chemical' release," the professor continues.

These natural chemicals are the brain's "feel-good compounds" and are released both to reduce stress and pain and in reaction to pleasurable activities, such as laughing with loved ones over a truly terrible festive cracker gag.

"It's not simply laughing at a foolish pun with a holiday cracker," she states. "You are in fact doing a lot of the really vital work of making, maintaining the social bonds you have with those you love."

Which Happens In the Mind?

But what is actually taking place inside the mind when we listen to a joke?

A tremendous amount occurs in reaction to humour, it turns out.

Employing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a kind of neural imager which shows which parts of the mind are more active, researchers have been able to map the regions that get more blood flow.

Testing entails scanning the brains of volunteer subjects and then subjecting them to a database of funny words, accompanied by either a neutral sound, or pre-recorded chuckles.

"In the scanner we observed a really interesting activation pattern of neural activity," says the professor.

A gag activates not just the parts of the mind in charge of hearing and understanding language, but also brain regions associated with both preparation and initiating motion and those linked to sight and recall.

Combine all of this as a whole, and people hearing a pun have a complex set of brain responses that underpin the laughter we hear.

The Contagious Power of Chuckles

Scientists discovered that when a humorous word is combined with laughter there is a greater response in the mind than the same word when followed by a non-emotional sound.

"This activation occurred in areas of the brain that you would employ to contort your face into a smile or a chuckle," the professor explains.

It means people are not just reacting to humorous words, they are responding to the laughter that accompanies them.

Amusement, according to the professor, can be contagious.

So what does this imply for the laughter heard at a Christmas gathering?

"People laugh more when you are familiar with people," she notes, "and laughter increases more when you are fond of them or care for them."

When it comes to Christmas cracker puns, she says, the feel-good factor is more likely to be caused not by the joke itself, but from the response to it.

"The laughter is key. The joke is the terrible holiday cracker joke, and it's just a pretext to chuckle together."

The Search for the Ideal Cracker Joke

Is it possible to discover the ultimate gag?

Probably not, but that has not prevented experts from trying to.

Years ago, a psychologist set up a scientific search for the planet's funniest joke.

Over tens of thousands of jokes later, with ratings lodged by 350,000 participants around the world, he has a clearer understanding than most as to what works and what fails.

The ideal festive cracker joke needs to be short, he explains.

"They must also need to be poor gags, jokes that cause us to groan," he adds.

The more "terrible" the gag, he states the better.

"This is because if no-one finds it funny – it's the joke's fault, not yours.

"The fascinating part about the holiday cracker puns is that not one person find them humorous.

"It creates a shared experience around the table and I believe it's lovely."