What Do Christmas Cracker Jokes Influence The Brain?

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

This one-liner is greeted with moans that echo through a storage facility in the capital.

We're at a joke-testing meeting with a company that makes supplies for gatherings. Its repertoire includes Christmas crackers.

The company's founder smiles, nearly sheepishly at the joke. But the pun has been selected and will appear in future crackers.

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

The key to a great holiday cracker joke is not the same as a good gag per se. It is entirely about the setting - in this instance, the communal amusement of the holiday meal with grandparents, children and potentially friends.

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

The Science Of Shared Amusement

Gathering to enjoy communal amusement is not only nothing new, scientists say, it is likely to be older than humanity.

"So when you are laughing with others at the holiday table you are engaging in what's very likely a truly primordial mammalian play vocalisation," says a neuroscience expert.

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

Researchers have discovered that a lack of such interactions can significantly harm both psychological and bodily health.

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

Endorphins are the brain's "feel-good compounds" and are produced both to alleviate stress and pain and in response to pleasurable experiences, such as laughing with loved ones over a particularly awful Christmas cracker joke.

"You're not just laughing at a silly joke with a holiday cracker," she states. "You are in fact performing a lot of the really vital task of making, maintaining the connections you have with those you love."

Which Happens Inside the Mind?

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

A tremendous amount occurs in response to humour, it turns out.

Employing brain scanning technology, a type of brain scanner which indicates which areas of the mind are working harder, researchers have been able to map the areas that receive more blood flow.

Testing entails scanning the brains of healthy subjects and then exposing them to a collection of humorous words, accompanied by either a non-emotional sound, or pre-recorded laughter.

"During the study we got a really interesting activation pattern of neural activity," notes the neuroscientist.

A joke stimulates not just the areas of the brain in charge of auditory processing and understanding language, but also neural regions involved in both preparation and starting motion and those involved in sight and recall.

Combine all of this together, and individuals hearing a joke have a sophisticated series of neural reactions that underpin the amusement we hear.

The Infectious Nature of Laughter

Scientists found that when a funny phrase is combined with laughter there is a greater reaction in the mind than the same word when accompanied by a non-emotional sound.

"This activation occurred in parts of the mind that you would employ to contort your face into a smile or a laugh," she says.

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

Amusement, according to the professor, can be contagious.

So what does this mean for the chuckles heard around a holiday table?

"You laugh more when you are familiar with people," she notes, "and laughter increases further when you are fond of them or care for them."

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

"It's the laughter. The joke is the dreadful Christmas cracker pun, and it's just a pretext to laugh as a group."

The Search for the Perfect Festive Pun

Is it possible to find the perfect joke?

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

In 2001, a professor established a research search for the planet's most humorous gag.

More than 40,000 gags later, with ratings lodged by hundreds of thousands of participants globally, he has a better understanding than most as to what works and what does not.

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

"They must also be bad jokes, jokes that make us moan," he adds.

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

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

"What's interesting about the holiday cracker jokes is that not one person considers them funny.

"That's a common moment around the gathering and I believe it's lovely."