What Do Holiday Cracker Jokes Affect Our Brains?

"What was the price did Father Christmas's sleigh cost? Nothing, it was on the house."

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

We're at a humor-evaluation session with a company that makes products for gatherings. Its catalogue features Christmas crackers.

The company's founder grins, almost sheepishly at the joke. But the pun has made the cut and will appear in upcoming crackers.

"The success is gauged by the gag by the volume of groans and the intensity of the groans at the table," the founder explains.

The secret to a good Christmas cracker joke is not the same as a good joke per se. It is entirely about the setting - in this instance, the communal amusement of the holiday dinner table with grandparents, kids and possibly neighbours.

"You want the gag to be a thing that brings the eight-year-old in harmony with the 80-year-old," she adds.

The Neuroscience Behind Communal Amusement

Coming together to enjoy shared amusement is not only ancient, experts argue, it is likely to be older than humanity.

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

Shared laughter, she says, aids in forge and strengthen social bonds between individuals.

Researchers have found that a absence of these interactions can significantly damage mental and physical well-being.

"Those you talk to, and laugh with, it results in increased amounts of 'happy chemical' uptake," she adds.

These natural chemicals are the brain's "feel-good compounds" and are released both to alleviate stress and pain and in reaction to pleasurable experiences, such as chuckling with friends over a particularly awful Christmas cracker joke.

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

Which Occurs In the Mind?

But what is actually taking place inside the brain when we hear a gag?

An awful lot occurs in response to comedy, it turns out.

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

The research involves imaging the minds of healthy subjects and then subjecting them to a database of funny words, accompanied by either a non-emotional sound, or pre-recorded laughter.

"During the study we got a really fascinating pattern of activation," notes the neuroscientist.

A joke activates not just the parts of the brain in charge of auditory processing and interpreting language, but also neural regions associated with both preparation and initiating motion and those involved in vision and recall.

Put these elements together, and individuals hearing a pun have a complex series of neural responses that support the amusement we experience.

The Infectious Nature of Laughter

Scientists discovered that when a humorous phrase is paired with chuckles there is a greater response in the mind than the same word when followed by a neutral sound.

"This was in areas of the brain that you would employ to move your expression into a grin or a chuckle," she says.

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

Amusement, says the professor, can be infectious.

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

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

When it comes to Christmas cracker jokes, she says, the feel-good factor is more likely to be triggered not by the gag itself, but from the reaction to it.

"The laughter is key. The gag is the dreadful holiday cracker joke, and it's just a reason to chuckle together."

The Search for the Perfect Cracker Joke

Is it possible to find the ultimate joke?

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

Years ago, a psychologist set up a research search for the world's most humorous gag.

More than 40,000 gags submitted, with scores provided by 350,000 participants globally, he has a clearer idea than many as to what works and what does not.

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

"They must also need to be poor jokes, jokes that cause us to moan," he adds.

The more "terrible" the gag, he says the better.

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

"What's interesting about the Christmas cracker jokes is that not one person find them humorous.

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