What Do Holiday Cracker Gags Influence Our Brains?

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

This quip is greeted with moans that resonate through a storage facility in the capital.

We're at a humor-evaluation meeting with a firm that produces products for social events. Its repertoire includes Christmas crackers.

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

"You measure the joke by the volume of groans and the loudness of the groans at the table," the founder says.

The key to a good Christmas cracker joke is not the same as a good gag per se. It is all about the setting - in this case, the shared laughter of the holiday meal with grandparents, kids and potentially neighbours.

"You want the gag to be a thing that unites the child together with the grandparent," she adds.

The Science Of Shared Laughter

Coming together to enjoy shared laughter is not only ancient, experts say, it is probably to be pre-human.

"So when you are laughing with people around the holiday table you are engaging in what's almost certainly a really primordial mammalian social sound," explains a professor.

Shared amusement, she explains, aids in forge and strengthen social bonds between people.

Scientists have found that a absence of such social exchanges can significantly harm mental and physical well-being.

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

Endorphins are the body's "happy chemicals" and are released both to reduce tension and discomfort and in reaction to pleasurable activities, such as laughing with loved ones over a particularly awful Christmas cracker gag.

"You're not just laughing at a foolish joke with a holiday cracker," the expert says. "You are in fact doing a lot of the really vital work of building, preserving the connections you have with the people you care about."

Which Occurs In the Brain?

But what is actually taking place within the mind when we listen to a gag?

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

Using brain scanning technology, a type of brain scanner which indicates which parts of the brain are more active, researchers have been able to chart the regions that receive more blood.

The research entails scanning the brains of healthy subjects and then exposing them to a collection of funny phrases, accompanied by either a neutral sound, or pre-recorded laughter.

"In the scanner we got a really fascinating pattern of neural activity," says the neuroscientist.

A gag activates not just the areas of the mind in charge of auditory processing and understanding language, but also neural areas involved in both planning and initiating motion and those involved in sight and recall.

Put these elements together, and individuals hearing a joke have a complex series of brain responses that support the laughter we hear.

The Infectious Power of Chuckles

Scientists discovered that when a humorous phrase is paired with chuckles there is a stronger response in the brain than the identical word when accompanied by a non-emotional sound.

"This was in areas of the brain that you would employ to contort your face into a smile or a chuckle," she explains.

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

Laughter, according to the professor, can be contagious.

So what does this mean for the laughter heard around a holiday gathering?

"You laugh more when you are familiar with people," she notes, "and laughter increases more when you like them or love them."

When it comes to Christmas cracker puns, she says, the feel-good factor is more likely to be caused not by the gag in itself, but from the response to it.

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

The Quest for the Ideal Cracker Joke

Will we ever discover the ultimate joke?

Probably not, but that has not stopped experts from trying to.

Years ago, a professor established a scientific search for the world's funniest joke.

More than 40,000 gags submitted, with scores provided by hundreds of thousands of participants around the world, he has a better understanding than many as to what succeeds and what fails.

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

"But they also need to be poor jokes, puns that make us groan," he continues.

The more "awful" the joke, he states the better.

"This is because if nobody laughs – it's the joke's shortcoming, not your own.

"The fascinating part about the holiday cracker jokes is that none of us considers them humorous.

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