The Impact of Holiday Cracker Gags Affect The Brain?

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

This one-liner is met by moans that echo through a warehouse in London.

This describes a humor-evaluation session with a company that makes products for social events. Its repertoire includes festive crackers.

The company's owner grins, almost sheepishly at the joke. But the joke has been selected and will appear in future crackers.

"You measure the joke by the number of groans and the loudness of the groans around the table," she says.

The key to a great Christmas cracker joke is not the identical as a good gag per se. It is all about the context - in this instance, the shared laughter of the Christmas dinner table with elders, children and potentially neighbours.

"You want the gag to be something that brings the child together with the grandparent," she states.

The Science Behind Shared Laughter

Gathering to experience communal amusement is not only nothing new, experts argue, it is likely to be pre-human.

"Therefore when you are laughing with others at the holiday table you are dropping into what's almost certainly a really ancient mammalian play vocalisation," says a professor.

Communal amusement, she says, helps forge and strengthen social connections between people.

Scientists have discovered that a absence of these social exchanges can seriously harm mental and physical health.

"Those you talk to, and share laughter with, it results in increased levels of endorphin uptake," she adds.

Endorphins are the body's "happy chemicals" and are produced both to reduce tension and discomfort and in reaction to pleasurable activities, such as laughing with loved ones over a particularly terrible festive cracker joke.

"It's not simply laughing at a foolish joke with a holiday cracker," the expert states. "You are in fact doing a lot of the really vital task of making, maintaining the connections you have with the people you care about."

Which Occurs In the Mind?

But what is truly taking place within the mind when we hear a joke?

A tremendous amount happens in response to humour, it transpires.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a kind of neural imager which shows which parts of the mind are working harder, scientists have been able to map the areas that get more blood.

The research involves imaging the minds of healthy participants and then exposing them to a database of humorous phrases, accompanied by either a neutral sound, or recorded laughter.

"During the study we got a very fascinating pattern of activation," notes the professor.

A joke activates not just the parts of the mind responsible for hearing and understanding speech, but also brain areas involved in both preparation and initiating movement and those linked to vision and recall.

Put these elements as a whole, and individuals listening to a joke have a complex series of brain responses that support the amusement we hear.

The Infectious Nature of Chuckles

Researchers discovered that when a funny phrase is combined with laughter there is a greater response in the mind than the identical word when followed by a neutral sound.

"This activation occurred in parts of the brain that you would use to contort your expression into a smile or a laugh," the professor explains.

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

Laughter, says the professor, can be infectious.

So what does this imply for the chuckles heard at a Christmas gathering?

"People laugh harder when you know people," she notes, "and laughter increases more when you are fond of them or care for them."

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

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

The Search for the Ideal Cracker Joke

Is it possible to discover the perfect gag?

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

In 2001, a psychologist established a scientific search for the planet's funniest gag.

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

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

"They must also be poor jokes, puns that cause us to groan," he adds.

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

"The reason is that if nobody laughs – it's the joke's shortcoming, not your own.

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

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