What Do Festive Cracker Puns Do to The Brain?

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

This joke is met by moans that echo through a warehouse in London.

This describes a joke-testing session with a firm that makes supplies for gatherings. Its catalogue includes Christmas crackers.

The company's owner smiles, almost sheepishly at the gag. But the pun has made the cut and will feature in future crackers.

"The success is gauged by the gag by the volume of groans and the intensity of the groans at the table," the founder explains.

The secret to a good Christmas cracker joke is not the same as a good gag per se. It is entirely about the setting - in this case, the communal laughter of the Christmas dinner table with grandparents, kids and potentially friends.

"You want the gag to be a thing that unites the eight-year-old together with the grandparent," she states.

The Science Of Shared Amusement

Coming together to enjoy communal laughter is not only nothing new, experts argue, it is probably to be older than humanity.

"Therefore when you are chuckling with others at the Christmas dinner you are dropping into what's almost certainly a really primordial mammalian social sound," explains a professor.

Shared laughter, she explains, aids in make and maintain social connections between people.

Researchers have found that a lack of these interactions can seriously harm both psychological and bodily well-being.

"The people you talk to, and laugh with, it results in enhanced amounts of 'happy chemical' release," the professor continues.

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

"It's not simply chuckling at a foolish pun with a holiday cracker," the expert says. "You are in fact doing a lot of the truly vital task of making, maintaining the social bonds you have with the people you love."

What Happens Inside the Mind?

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

A tremendous amount happens in reaction to comedy, 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 chart the areas that get more blood flow.

The research involves imaging the brains of healthy participants and then exposing them to a database of funny phrases, accompanied by either a non-emotional sound, or pre-recorded chuckles.

"In the scanner we observed a very fascinating pattern of neural activity," says the professor.

A gag stimulates not just the parts of the mind responsible for auditory processing and interpreting language, but also neural areas associated with both planning and initiating movement and those involved in sight and recall.

Put all of this as a whole, and individuals hearing a joke have a complex set of brain reactions that support the amusement we experience.

The Contagious Nature of Chuckles

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

"This was in areas of the mind that you would use to move your face into a grin or a chuckle," the professor explains.

It means people are not just reacting to humorous words, they are reacting to the laughter that follows them.

Amusement, says the expert, can be infectious.

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

"You laugh more when you are familiar with others," she notes, "and you laugh more when you are fond of them or love them."

When it comes to festive cracker jokes, she says, the feel-good effect is more likely to be caused not by the gag itself, but from the response to it.

"The laughter is key. The joke is the terrible holiday cracker pun, and it's just a reason to laugh together."

The Search for the Ideal Festive Pun

Is it possible to find the ultimate gag?

Probably not, but that has not prevented experts from attempting to.

In 2001, a professor set up a research project for the world's funniest gag.

Over 40,000 gags submitted, with scores lodged by 350,000 participants around the world, he has a better understanding than many as to what works and what does not.

The ideal Christmas cracker pun needs to be brief, he explains.

"But they also be poor gags, puns that cause us to moan," he continues.

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

"This is because if no-one finds it funny – it's the gag's shortcoming, not your own.

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

"That's a shared experience at the gathering and I think it's lovely."