What Do Festive Cracker Jokes Do to Our Minds?

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

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

This describes a joke-testing meeting with a firm that makes products for social events. Its repertoire features Christmas crackers.

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

"You measure the gag by the number of moans and the loudness of the groans at the table," the founder explains.

The secret to a great Christmas cracker pun is not the same as a good gag in itself. It is all about the setting - in this case, the communal laughter of the holiday meal with elders, kids and potentially friends.

"You want the gag to be something that brings the eight-year-old together with the 80-year-old," she states.

The Neuroscience Of Communal Amusement

Gathering to experience shared laughter is not only ancient, experts say, it is probably to be pre-human.

"Therefore when you are chuckling with people around the Christmas table you are engaging in what's almost certainly a truly primordial mammalian play sound," says a professor.

Communal laughter, she explains, aids in forge and strengthen social connections between individuals.

Researchers have discovered that a absence of these interactions can significantly damage both psychological and bodily well-being.

"Those you converse with, and laugh with, it results in enhanced amounts of endorphin release," the professor continues.

These natural chemicals are the brain's "happy chemicals" and are released both to reduce tension and discomfort and in reaction to enjoyable experiences, such as chuckling with loved ones over a truly terrible festive cracker gag.

"You're not just chuckling at a silly joke with a holiday cracker," she states. "You are actually doing a lot of the truly vital task of building, preserving the connections you have with those you love."

What Occurs In the Mind?

But what is truly taking place inside the mind when we hear a gag?

An awful lot happens in response to humour, it transpires.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a kind of brain scanner which shows which areas of the mind are more active, researchers have been able to map the areas that receive more blood.

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

"In the scanner we got a really fascinating activation pattern of activation," notes the professor.

A joke activates not just the areas of the brain in charge of hearing and understanding speech, but also neural regions involved in both preparation and starting motion and those linked to sight and recall.

Combine all of this as a whole, and people listening to a pun have a complex set of brain responses that underpin the amusement we experience.

The Infectious Power of Chuckles

Researchers discovered that when a humorous word is combined with laughter there is a stronger reaction in the mind than the identical word when accompanied by a non-emotional sound.

"This was in parts of the mind that you would use to move your expression into a smile or a laugh," she says.

It means we are not just responding to funny words, they are reacting to the amusement that follows them.

Laughter, says the professor, can be contagious.

So what does this imply for the chuckles found around a Christmas table?

"People laugh more when you know others," she notes, "and laughter increases further when you like them or care for them."

When it comes to Christmas cracker jokes, she says, the positive factor is more likely to be triggered not by the gag itself, but from the response to it.

"The laughter is key. The gag is the dreadful Christmas cracker pun, and it's just a reason to chuckle together."

The Quest for the Perfect Cracker Joke

Will we ever discover the perfect gag?

Probably not, but that has not stopped researchers from attempting to.

Years ago, a psychologist established a scientific search for the planet's most humorous gag.

More than 40,000 gags later, with ratings lodged by 350,000 participants globally, he has a clearer understanding than most as to what succeeds and what fails.

The ideal festive cracker pun must be brief, he says.

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

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

"The reason is that if nobody laughs – it's the gag's shortcoming, not yours.

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

"It creates a shared moment at the table and I believe it's wonderful."