What Do Christmas Cracker Jokes Affect Our Minds?

"What was the price did Santa's sled cost? Zero, it was on the house."

This quip is greeted with moans that echo through a warehouse in the capital.

This describes a humor-evaluation meeting with a firm that produces products for gatherings. Its repertoire features festive crackers.

The company's founder grins, nearly sheepishly at the gag. But the joke has made the cut and will appear in future crackers.

"You measure the gag by the volume of groans and the intensity of the groans at the table," the founder explains.

The secret to a great Christmas cracker pun is not the same as a stand-up gag per se. It is all about the context - in this case, the communal amusement of the Christmas dinner table with elders, kids and potentially friends.

"The goal is for the joke to be something that brings the eight-year-old in harmony with the 80-year-old," she states.

The Neuroscience Behind Communal Amusement

Coming together to experience shared laughter is not only nothing new, experts argue, it is likely to be pre-human.

"Therefore when you are chuckling with people around the holiday dinner you are engaging in what's very likely a really ancient mammal social sound," explains a professor.

Shared amusement, she explains, helps forge and strengthen social connections between people.

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

"The people you talk to, and laugh with, it leads to enhanced levels of 'happy chemical' release," the professor continues.

These natural chemicals are the body's "happy chemicals" and are released both to reduce stress and pain and in reaction to pleasurable activities, such as chuckling with loved ones over a particularly terrible Christmas cracker joke.

"You're not just chuckling at a foolish joke with a Christmas cracker," she states. "You are actually performing a lot of the truly important task of building, preserving the social bonds you have with the people you love."

Which Occurs Inside the Mind?

But what is truly taking place inside the brain when we listen to a joke?

An awful lot happens in reaction to comedy, it transpires.

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

The research involves scanning the minds of volunteer subjects and then subjecting them to a collection of funny phrases, accompanied by either a non-emotional sound, or pre-recorded chuckles.

"In the scanner we observed a very interesting pattern of activation," says the professor.

A gag activates not just the parts of the brain responsible for hearing and understanding speech, but also neural regions involved in both planning and initiating motion and those linked to sight and recall.

Put these elements together, and people listening to a joke have a sophisticated set of neural responses that underpin the laughter we hear.

The Infectious Nature of Chuckles

Researchers discovered that when a humorous phrase is paired with laughter there is a greater reaction in the mind than the same word when followed by a neutral sound.

"This was in parts of the mind that you would employ to move your expression into a smile or a chuckle," she explains.

It indicates people are not just responding to funny jokes, they are reacting to the laughter that accompanies them.

Laughter, says the professor, can be infectious.

So what does this imply for the laughter found at a Christmas gathering?

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

When it comes to festive cracker jokes, she explains, the feel-good factor is more likely to be caused not by the joke itself, but from the reaction to it.

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

The Quest for the Ideal Festive Pun

Will we ever discover the ultimate gag?

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

Years ago, a psychologist set up a scientific project for the world's funniest gag.

More than 40,000 jokes submitted, with ratings provided by 350,000 people globally, he has a better understanding than most as to what succeeds and what does not.

The perfect Christmas cracker joke must be brief, he explains.

"They must also need to be bad jokes, puns that make us groan," he continues.

The increasingly "terrible" the joke, he states the more effective.

"The reason is that if nobody finds it funny – 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 shared moment around the table and I think it's wonderful."