The Impact of Festive Cracker Gags Do to Our Brains?

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

This joke is greeted with moans that resonate through a warehouse in the capital.

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

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

"The success is gauged by the gag by the number 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 joke in itself. It is entirely about the setting - in this case, the communal amusement of the Christmas dinner table with grandparents, kids and potentially friends.

"You want the gag to be something that unites the child in harmony with the 80-year-old," she states.

The Neuroscience Of Shared Amusement

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

"So when you are laughing with people around the Christmas table you are dropping into what's very likely a really ancient mammalian social vocalisation," explains a neuroscience expert.

Communal amusement, she explains, aids in make and maintain social bonds between people.

Scientists have discovered that a absence of these social exchanges can seriously harm both psychological and bodily well-being.

"The people you converse with, and share laughter with, it results in enhanced amounts of 'happy chemical' release," she continues.

These natural chemicals are the brain's "feel-good compounds" and are released both to reduce stress and pain and in reaction to enjoyable activities, such as laughing with loved ones over a particularly awful festive cracker joke.

"It's not simply chuckling at a foolish joke with a holiday cracker," she says. "You are in fact performing a lot of the really important work of building, preserving the social bonds you have with those you care about."

What Occurs In the Brain?

But what is truly taking place within the brain when we listen to a gag?

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

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

Testing entails scanning the brains of healthy subjects and then exposing them to a database of humorous words, accompanied by either a neutral sound, or recorded chuckles.

"During the study we observed a very fascinating activation pattern of neural activity," says the neuroscientist.

A gag activates not just the parts of the mind in charge of auditory processing and interpreting speech, but also neural areas associated with both preparation and starting motion and those linked to vision and memory.

Put all of this together, and people listening to a pun have a complex set of neural reactions that underpin the laughter we experience.

The Infectious Nature of Chuckles

Scientists found that when a funny word is combined with chuckles there is a stronger response in the mind than the same word when followed by a non-emotional sound.

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

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

Amusement, according to the expert, can be infectious.

So what does this mean for the laughter found at a Christmas gathering?

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

When it comes to Christmas cracker jokes, she explains, the positive effect is more likely to be triggered not by the joke in itself, but from the response to it.

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

The Search for the Ideal Festive Pun

Will we ever find the perfect gag?

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

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

More than tens of thousands of jokes submitted, with scores lodged by hundreds of thousands of participants globally, he has a clearer understanding than many as to what works and what does not.

The ideal Christmas cracker pun must be short, he explains.

"They must also need to be bad jokes, puns that cause us to moan," he continues.

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

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

"The fascinating part about the Christmas cracker puns is that none of us find them funny.

"That's a shared experience at the gathering and I believe it's wonderful."