The Impact of Holiday Cracker Puns Affect Our Brains?

"What was the price did Father Christmas's sled cost? Nothing, it was on the house."

This one-liner is met by moans that resonate through a warehouse in London.

This describes a joke-testing session with a company that produces products for social events. Its repertoire includes Christmas crackers.

The company's owner smiles, almost sheepishly at the gag. But the joke has been selected and will feature in upcoming crackers.

"The success is gauged by the gag by the volume of groans and the intensity of the groans around the table," the founder says.

The key to a good holiday cracker joke is not the identical as a stand-up gag per se. It is entirely about the context - in this case, the shared amusement of the holiday dinner table with grandparents, children and potentially friends.

"The goal is for the joke to be a thing that unites the child in harmony with the 80-year-old," she states.

The Neuroscience Of Communal Amusement

Coming together to experience shared amusement is not only ancient, experts argue, it is likely to be pre-human.

"Therefore when you are chuckling with others at the Christmas dinner you are engaging in what's very likely a really ancient mammal social sound," says a neuroscience expert.

Communal laughter, she says, aids in forge and strengthen social bonds between individuals.

Scientists have discovered that a absence of such interactions can significantly harm mental and physical well-being.

"The people you talk to, and laugh with, it results in increased amounts of 'happy chemical' uptake," she adds.

These natural chemicals are the body's "happy chemicals" and are released both to alleviate stress and pain and in response to pleasurable activities, such as laughing with loved ones over a particularly terrible festive cracker joke.

"It's not simply chuckling at a foolish joke with a holiday cracker," she states. "You are actually doing a lot of the truly vital task of making, maintaining the social bonds you have with the people you care about."

What Happens In the Brain?

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

A tremendous amount occurs in reaction to humour, it transpires.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a type of neural imager which shows which parts of the brain are working harder, scientists have been able to chart the areas that get more blood.

Testing involves imaging the minds of healthy participants and then exposing them to a database of funny words, paired with either a neutral sound, or pre-recorded laughter.

"During the study we observed a very fascinating pattern of activation," says the professor.

A joke stimulates not just the areas of the mind responsible for auditory processing and interpreting speech, but also brain regions involved in both preparation and starting movement and those involved in sight and memory.

Combine all of this together, and people listening to a joke have a sophisticated series of neural reactions that underpin the amusement we hear.

The Contagious Power of Chuckles

Scientists discovered that when a humorous phrase is paired with chuckles there is a stronger reaction in the brain than the identical phrase when accompanied by a neutral sound.

"This activation occurred in areas of the mind that you would use to move your face into a smile or a laugh," the professor explains.

It indicates we are not just responding to funny jokes, they are responding to the laughter that follows them.

Laughter, says the professor, can be contagious.

So what does this mean for the chuckles found around a Christmas gathering?

"You laugh harder when you are familiar with others," she notes, "and you laugh further when you like them or care for them."

When it comes to festive cracker jokes, she explains, the feel-good factor is more probable to be triggered not by the gag in itself, but from the response to it.

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

The Quest for the Ideal Cracker Joke

Is it possible to discover the ultimate gag?

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

In 2001, a professor set up a scientific project for the world's funniest gag.

More than 40,000 jokes submitted, with scores provided by hundreds of thousands of people globally, he has a better understanding than most as to what succeeds and what does not.

The ideal Christmas cracker pun must be short, he says.

"They must also be bad gags, puns that make us moan," he continues.

The more "awful" the joke, he states the better.

"This is because if nobody finds it funny – it's the gag's shortcoming, not yours.

"What's interesting about the Christmas cracker jokes is that none of us find them funny.

"That's a shared experience at the gathering and I think it's lovely."