The Impact of Holiday Cracker Jokes Influence Our Minds?

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

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

We're at a humor-evaluation session with a company that makes supplies for gatherings. Its repertoire features festive crackers.

The company's founder smiles, nearly apologetically at the gag. But the joke has been selected and will feature in upcoming crackers.

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

The secret to a good holiday cracker joke is not the same as a good gag in itself. It is all about the setting - in this case, the shared laughter of the Christmas meal with elders, kids and possibly neighbours.

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

The Neuroscience Of Shared Amusement

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

"So when you are chuckling with people at the Christmas table you are engaging in what's very likely a really ancient mammal play vocalisation," explains a neuroscience expert.

Communal laughter, she says, aids in make and maintain social bonds between people.

Scientists have discovered that a lack of such social exchanges can seriously harm both psychological and bodily health.

"Those you converse with, and share laughter with, it results in enhanced amounts of 'happy chemical' uptake," the professor continues.

These natural chemicals are the body's "feel-good compounds" and are released both to reduce tension and discomfort and in reaction to enjoyable activities, such as chuckling with loved ones over a particularly terrible Christmas cracker gag.

"It's not simply laughing at a foolish joke with a Christmas cracker," she states. "You are in fact performing a lot of the really vital task of building, preserving the social bonds you have with those you love."

What Happens Inside the Mind?

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

An awful lot happens in reaction to comedy, it turns out.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a kind of brain scanner which indicates which parts of the brain are working harder, scientists have been able to map the regions that receive more blood flow.

Testing involves scanning the brains of volunteer subjects and then exposing them to a collection of humorous words, accompanied by either a non-emotional sound, or recorded chuckles.

"In the scanner we observed a very interesting activation pattern of neural activity," says the neuroscientist.

A joke activates not just the parts of the mind in charge of hearing and understanding language, but also neural regions involved in both planning and starting motion and those linked to vision and recall.

Combine all of this as a whole, and individuals hearing a pun have a complex series of brain responses that underpin the amusement we experience.

The Contagious Power of Laughter

Researchers found that when a humorous phrase is paired with chuckles there is a stronger response in the mind than the identical phrase when accompanied by a non-emotional sound.

"This activation occurred in parts of the mind that you would use to move your face into a smile or a chuckle," she explains.

It indicates people are not just reacting 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 heard around a holiday table?

"People laugh harder when you are familiar with others," she notes, "and laughter increases more when you like them or care for them."

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

"It's the laughter. The joke is the terrible Christmas cracker pun, and it's just a pretext to chuckle together."

The Quest for the Perfect Festive Pun

Will we ever find the ultimate gag?

Likely not, but that has not prevented experts from trying to.

Years ago, a professor established a research search for the planet's funniest gag.

Over 40,000 gags later, with ratings lodged by hundreds of thousands of people around the world, he has a clearer understanding than most as to what succeeds and what fails.

The ideal festive cracker joke needs to be short, he explains.

"They must also be poor gags, puns that cause us to moan," he continues.

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

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

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

"That's a common experience at the table and I believe it's lovely."