The Impact of Festive Cracker Puns Do to The Brain?

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

This joke is met by moans that resonate through a storage facility in London.

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

The company's owner smiles, nearly apologetically at the gag. But the joke has been selected and will appear in upcoming crackers.

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

The secret to a great Christmas cracker pun is not the identical as a good joke in itself. It is entirely about the setting - in this instance, the shared laughter of the holiday dinner table with elders, children and possibly friends.

"The goal is for the gag to be something that brings the child together with the 80-year-old," she adds.

The Science Of Communal Amusement

Gathering to experience shared amusement is not only ancient, experts argue, it is likely to be pre-human.

"So when you are chuckling with people at the holiday table you are engaging in what's almost certainly a really primordial mammal social vocalisation," explains a neuroscience expert.

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

Researchers have discovered that a lack of such interactions can seriously harm mental and physical well-being.

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

Endorphins are the brain's "happy chemicals" and are produced both to alleviate stress and pain and in reaction to enjoyable experiences, such as laughing with friends over a particularly awful Christmas cracker gag.

"You're not just laughing at a foolish pun with a holiday cracker," she says. "You are actually performing a lot of the really important work of building, preserving the connections you have with the people you love."

Which Happens In the Mind?

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

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

Employing brain scanning technology, a kind of brain scanner which indicates which parts of the brain are more active, researchers have been able to chart the regions that receive more blood.

Testing entails scanning the brains of volunteer participants and then subjecting them to a collection of funny phrases, accompanied by either a non-emotional sound, or pre-recorded laughter.

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

A joke activates not just the areas of the mind in charge of hearing and interpreting language, but also neural areas associated with both planning and initiating movement and those linked to vision and memory.

Combine these elements together, and individuals listening to a joke have a sophisticated series of brain reactions that underpin the laughter we hear.

The Infectious Nature of Laughter

Researchers discovered that when a funny phrase is paired with laughter there is a stronger response in the brain than the same phrase when accompanied by a non-emotional sound.

"This activation occurred in areas of the mind that you would use to move your expression into a smile or a chuckle," she says.

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

Laughter, according to the professor, can be contagious.

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

"You laugh harder when you are familiar with others," she notes, "and laughter increases further when you like them or love them."

When it comes to Christmas cracker puns, she explains, the feel-good factor is more likely to be caused not by the joke in itself, but from the response to it.

"The laughter is key. The gag is the dreadful holiday cracker pun, and it's just a pretext to laugh together."

The Search for the Perfect Festive Pun

Is it possible to discover the perfect joke?

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

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

More than tens of thousands of jokes submitted, with ratings provided by 350,000 participants around the world, he has a better understanding than most as to what succeeds and what fails.

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

"But they also need to be poor jokes, jokes that make us groan," he adds.

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

"This is because if no-one finds it funny – it's the joke's shortcoming, not yours.

"What's interesting about the Christmas cracker jokes is that none of us find them funny.

"It creates a shared experience at the table and I think it's lovely."