The Impact of Christmas Cracker Puns Do to The Brain?

"How much did Santa's sleigh cost? Nothing, it was on the house."

This one-liner is met by moans that echo through a storage facility in London.

This describes a humor-evaluation meeting with a firm that produces supplies for social events. Its repertoire features festive crackers.

The firm's founder smiles, almost apologetically at the gag. But the pun has been selected and will appear in future crackers.

"The success is gauged by the gag by the number of moans and the loudness of the groans at the table," she says.

The key to a good holiday cracker joke is not the same as a good joke in itself. It is all about the setting - in this instance, the shared amusement of the holiday meal with elders, kids and possibly friends.

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

The Neuroscience Behind Shared Laughter

Gathering to enjoy communal laughter is not only ancient, scientists argue, it is probably to be pre-human.

"So when you are laughing with others around the holiday dinner you are dropping into what's very likely a really ancient mammalian social sound," says a professor.

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

Researchers have discovered that a absence of these social exchanges can significantly damage mental and physical well-being.

"The people you talk to, and share laughter with, it leads to enhanced levels of 'happy chemical' uptake," she adds.

These natural chemicals are the body's "happy chemicals" and are produced both to alleviate tension and discomfort and in response to enjoyable experiences, such as laughing with loved ones over a particularly terrible festive cracker gag.

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

Which Happens Inside the Brain?

But what is actually happening within the brain when we hear a joke?

A tremendous amount occurs in reaction to comedy, it transpires.

Employing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a type of neural imager which indicates which parts of the brain are more active, researchers have been able to chart the regions that receive more blood flow.

Testing entails scanning the minds of volunteer participants and then exposing them to a database of humorous words, paired with either a non-emotional sound, or pre-recorded chuckles.

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

A gag activates not just the parts of the brain in charge of auditory processing and understanding speech, but also brain areas associated with both planning and initiating motion and those linked to vision and memory.

Combine these elements as a whole, and individuals hearing a pun have a complex series of neural reactions that underpin the laughter we hear.

The Contagious Nature of Chuckles

Scientists found that when a humorous phrase is combined with laughter there is a stronger response in the brain than the identical phrase when followed by a non-emotional sound.

"This activation occurred in areas of the brain that you would use to contort your expression into a smile or a chuckle," the professor says.

It indicates people are not just reacting to funny jokes, they are responding to the amusement that accompanies them.

Laughter, says the professor, can be infectious.

So what does this imply for the laughter found at a holiday table?

"You laugh more when you are familiar with people," she says, "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 triggered not by the gag in itself, but from the response to it.

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

The Quest for the Perfect Cracker Joke

Will we ever discover the perfect joke?

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

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

More than 40,000 jokes later, with ratings lodged by 350,000 people around the world, he has a clearer idea than many as to what works and what does not.

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

"But they also need to be poor gags, jokes that make us moan," he adds.

The more "awful" the gag, he says the more effective.

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

"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 believe it's lovely."