The Impact of Festive Cracker Puns Influence The Brain?

"What was the price did Father Christmas's sled cost? Zero, it was on the house."

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

This describes a joke-testing session with a company that makes supplies for social events. Its catalogue includes festive crackers.

The firm's owner smiles, nearly apologetically at the joke. But the joke has been selected and will feature in future crackers.

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

The secret to a great holiday cracker joke is not the identical as a stand-up joke per se. It is all about the setting - in this case, the communal amusement of the holiday meal with elders, children and possibly friends.

"The goal is for the gag to be a thing that unites the child in harmony with the grandparent," she states.

The Neuroscience Of Shared Laughter

Gathering to experience shared laughter is not only nothing new, scientists argue, it is probably 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 vocalisation," explains a neuroscience expert.

Communal amusement, she explains, helps forge and strengthen social bonds between individuals.

Researchers have discovered that a lack of such interactions can seriously harm mental and physical health.

"Those you talk to, and share laughter with, it leads to increased levels of endorphin release," the professor adds.

These natural chemicals are the brain's "happy chemicals" and are released both to alleviate stress and pain and in response to pleasurable experiences, such as laughing with loved ones over a truly awful Christmas cracker gag.

"It's not simply chuckling at a foolish pun with a Christmas cracker," the expert states. "You are actually doing a lot of the truly important work of building, preserving the connections you have with the people you love."

Which Occurs In the Mind?

But what is truly happening within the brain when we hear a gag?

An awful lot happens in response to humour, it turns out.

Using brain scanning technology, a kind of neural imager which indicates which areas of the mind are working harder, scientists have been able to chart the regions that receive more blood flow.

The research entails scanning the brains of healthy subjects and then subjecting them to a database of funny words, paired with either a neutral sound, or recorded laughter.

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

A gag activates not just the areas of the mind responsible for hearing and understanding language, but also neural areas associated with both preparation and initiating movement and those linked to sight and memory.

Combine these elements as a whole, and people listening to a joke have a sophisticated series of neural reactions that underpin the laughter we experience.

The Contagious Nature of Laughter

Researchers discovered that when a humorous word is combined with chuckles there is a greater reaction in the mind than the same word when followed by a neutral sound.

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

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

Laughter, says the professor, can be infectious.

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

"People laugh more when you are familiar with people," she says, "and you laugh more when you like them or care for them."

When it comes to festive cracker puns, she explains, the feel-good effect is more likely to be triggered not by the joke in itself, but from the reaction to it.

"It's the laughter. The joke is the terrible holiday cracker joke, and it's just a reason to laugh as a group."

The Quest for the Perfect Cracker Joke

Is it possible to discover the perfect joke?

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

In 2001, a professor established a scientific project for the world's most humorous joke.

More than tens of thousands of gags later, with ratings lodged by hundreds of thousands of people globally, he has a better understanding than many as to what works and what fails.

The perfect festive cracker pun needs to be brief, he says.

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

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

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

"What's interesting about the holiday cracker jokes is that not one person considers them funny.

"That's a common moment at the table and I think it's wonderful."