What Do Festive Cracker Puns Do to Our Brains?

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

This quip is greeted with groans that resonate through a storage facility in London.

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

The firm's owner grins, nearly apologetically at the joke. But the pun has made the cut and will feature in upcoming crackers.

"You measure the joke by the volume of groans and the intensity of the groans around the table," the founder says.

The key to a great Christmas cracker joke is not the identical as a stand-up gag per se. It is entirely about the setting - in this case, the shared laughter of the holiday meal with elders, children and potentially friends.

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

The Science Behind Shared Laughter

Gathering to experience shared laughter is not only nothing new, scientists argue, it is probably to be older than humanity.

"Therefore when you are chuckling with others around the Christmas dinner you are dropping into what's almost certainly a really primordial mammalian social vocalisation," says a neuroscience expert.

Communal laughter, she explains, aids in forge and strengthen social bonds between people.

Scientists have found that a absence of such social exchanges can significantly harm both psychological and bodily health.

"The people you converse with, and share laughter with, it leads to enhanced amounts of 'happy chemical' uptake," the professor continues.

These natural chemicals are the brain's "happy chemicals" and are produced both to reduce tension and discomfort and in reaction to enjoyable activities, such as chuckling with friends over a truly terrible Christmas cracker gag.

"You're not just chuckling at a silly joke with a Christmas cracker," she states. "You are actually doing a lot of the truly vital task of building, preserving the connections you have with the people you love."

Which Occurs Inside the Mind?

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

A tremendous amount happens in reaction to comedy, it turns out.

Using brain scanning technology, a type of brain scanner which shows which areas of the mind are more active, researchers have been able to map the areas that receive more blood flow.

The research involves imaging the minds of healthy subjects and then subjecting them to a collection of humorous phrases, accompanied by either a non-emotional sound, or recorded chuckles.

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

A gag activates not just the parts of the mind in charge of auditory processing and understanding speech, but also neural regions involved in both planning and starting motion and those linked to sight and recall.

Combine these elements together, and individuals listening to a pun have a sophisticated series of brain reactions that support the amusement we hear.

The Infectious Nature of Chuckles

Researchers found that when a humorous word is paired with chuckles there is a greater 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 laugh," the professor says.

It means people are not just responding to humorous jokes, they are responding to the amusement that accompanies them.

Laughter, says the expert, can be infectious.

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

"You laugh more when you know others," she notes, "and laughter increases further when you like them or care for them."

When it comes to festive cracker puns, she says, the positive effect is more probable to be caused not by the gag in itself, but from the reaction to it.

"It's the laughter. The gag is the terrible Christmas cracker pun, and it's just a reason to chuckle as a group."

The Search for the Perfect Festive Pun

Is it possible to discover the ultimate joke?

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

Years ago, a professor set up a research project for the world's funniest gag.

Over 40,000 jokes later, with scores lodged by hundreds of thousands of participants globally, he has a better understanding than most as to what succeeds and what fails.

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

"But they also be poor jokes, puns that make us moan," he continues.

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

"This is because if nobody finds it funny – it's the joke's fault, not yours.

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

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