How Do Festive Cracker Gags Do to Our Brains?

"What was the price did Santa's sleigh cost? Zero, it was on the house."

This quip is met by moans that resonate through a storage facility in London.

We're at a joke-testing meeting with a company that makes supplies for social events. Its catalogue features festive crackers.

The firm's owner grins, almost apologetically at the gag. But the pun has been selected and will feature in future crackers.

"You measure the joke by the number of moans and the intensity of the groans around the table," the founder says.

The key to a great holiday cracker pun is not the same as a good joke in itself. It is entirely about the setting - in this instance, the communal laughter of the holiday meal with elders, children and possibly friends.

"The goal is for the joke to be something that brings the eight-year-old in harmony with the 80-year-old," she adds.

The Science Of Shared Amusement

Coming together to experience shared laughter is not only nothing new, experts say, it is probably to be older than humanity.

"So when you are chuckling with others around the holiday dinner you are dropping into what's very likely a truly primordial mammalian play vocalisation," explains a neuroscience expert.

Shared amusement, she says, aids in forge and strengthen social bonds between people.

Researchers have found that a lack of these interactions can seriously damage mental and physical well-being.

"The people you converse with, and laugh with, it leads to increased amounts of endorphin uptake," she continues.

Endorphins are the body's "feel-good compounds" and are released both to reduce tension and discomfort and in response to enjoyable activities, such as laughing with loved ones over a particularly terrible Christmas cracker joke.

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

Which Occurs Inside the Mind?

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

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

Employing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a kind of neural imager which indicates which areas of the mind are working harder, researchers have been able to map the areas that receive more blood.

Testing entails scanning the brains of healthy participants and then exposing them to a database of humorous phrases, paired with either a neutral sound, or pre-recorded laughter.

"During the study we got a very interesting activation pattern of neural activity," notes the neuroscientist.

A gag activates not just the areas of the mind in charge of hearing and understanding speech, but also neural regions involved in both preparation and starting motion and those linked to vision and memory.

Combine these elements as a whole, and people hearing a pun have a sophisticated series of neural responses that support the laughter we experience.

The Contagious Nature of Chuckles

Scientists discovered that when a funny word is combined with laughter there is a greater response in the brain than the identical word when followed by a non-emotional sound.

"This activation occurred in parts of the mind that you would employ to move your face into a smile or a laugh," she says.

It means we are not just responding to funny 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 chuckles heard around a holiday table?

"You laugh harder when you know people," she says, "and you laugh more when you like them or love them."

When it comes to festive cracker puns, she says, the positive factor is more likely to be caused not by the joke itself, but from the reaction to it.

"The laughter is key. The gag is the terrible holiday cracker pun, and it's just a pretext to laugh as a group."

The Quest for the Perfect Festive Pun

Is it possible to find the ultimate gag?

Likely not, but that has not prevented researchers from attempting to.

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

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

The perfect festive cracker joke must be brief, he explains.

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

The more "terrible" the joke, he says the more effective.

"The reason is that if no-one laughs – it's the gag's fault, not yours.

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

"That's a common moment around the table and I believe it's wonderful."