What Do Holiday Cracker Puns Affect Our Minds?

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

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

We're at a humor-evaluation meeting with a firm that produces supplies for social events. Its repertoire features Christmas crackers.

The company's founder grins, nearly sheepishly at the gag. But the pun has been selected and will feature in future crackers.

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

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

"The goal is for the joke to be a thing that unites the eight-year-old together with the 80-year-old," she adds.

The Neuroscience Of Shared Amusement

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

"Therefore when you are laughing with people at the Christmas dinner you are dropping into what's very likely a really primordial mammal social vocalisation," says a neuroscience expert.

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

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

"Those you talk to, and laugh with, it leads to enhanced levels of 'happy chemical' release," she continues.

These natural chemicals are the body's "happy chemicals" and are produced both to alleviate tension and discomfort and in response to enjoyable activities, such as chuckling with friends over a truly awful festive cracker gag.

"It's not simply chuckling at a silly pun with a holiday cracker," the expert states. "You are in fact doing a lot of the really important work of building, preserving the connections you have with those you love."

Which Happens In the Brain?

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

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

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

The research entails scanning the minds of volunteer participants and then subjecting them to a database of funny words, accompanied by either a neutral sound, or recorded chuckles.

"In the scanner we observed a really fascinating activation pattern of activation," says the professor.

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

Combine all of this as a whole, and people listening to a joke have a complex series of neural reactions that support the laughter we hear.

The Infectious Nature of Laughter

Researchers found that when a humorous word is paired with chuckles there is a greater response in the brain than the identical word when accompanied by a neutral sound.

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

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

Laughter, says the professor, can be infectious.

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

"People laugh harder when you know others," she says, "and laughter increases further when you like them or love them."

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

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

The Search for the Perfect Festive Pun

Will we ever discover the ultimate joke?

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

Years ago, a professor established a scientific search for the world's most humorous gag.

Over 40,000 jokes later, with scores lodged by 350,000 people globally, he has a clearer understanding than many as to what succeeds and what fails.

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

"They must also be poor jokes, puns that make us moan," he adds.

The increasingly "terrible" the gag, he states the more effective.

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

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

"It creates a common experience around the table and I believe it's wonderful."