What Do Christmas Cracker Puns Influence The Brain?

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

This quip is met by groans that echo through a storage facility in London.

This describes a humor-evaluation meeting with a firm that produces products for gatherings. Its catalogue includes Christmas crackers.

The company's owner smiles, nearly sheepishly at the gag. But the pun has made the cut and will appear in future crackers.

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

The secret to a good holiday cracker pun is not the same as a stand-up joke per se. It is entirely about the context - in this instance, the communal laughter of the holiday meal with grandparents, kids and potentially neighbours.

"You want the joke to be a thing that unites the eight-year-old together with the 80-year-old," she adds.

The Neuroscience Behind Communal Amusement

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

"Therefore when you are chuckling with people at the holiday dinner you are engaging in what's almost certainly a truly ancient mammalian play sound," says a neuroscience expert.

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

Scientists have discovered that a absence of these interactions can seriously damage mental and physical health.

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

These natural chemicals are the brain's "happy chemicals" and are produced both to alleviate stress and pain and in reaction to pleasurable experiences, such as laughing with friends over a truly terrible Christmas cracker joke.

"You're not just chuckling at a silly joke with a Christmas cracker," the expert states. "You are in fact performing a lot of the really vital task of building, preserving the connections you have with the people you love."

What Happens In the Mind?

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

An awful lot occurs in reaction to humour, it transpires.

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

The research involves imaging the minds of volunteer subjects and then exposing them to a database of humorous phrases, paired with either a non-emotional sound, or pre-recorded laughter.

"During the study we got a very fascinating pattern of activation," says the neuroscientist.

A joke activates not just the parts of the brain in charge of hearing and understanding speech, but also brain areas involved in both planning and initiating motion and those involved in sight and recall.

Put all of this together, and people hearing a joke have a complex set of brain reactions that support the amusement we experience.

The Contagious Nature of Chuckles

Scientists discovered that when a funny phrase is combined with chuckles there is a stronger reaction in the brain than the identical word when accompanied by a non-emotional sound.

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

It indicates people are not just responding to humorous words, they are responding to the laughter that accompanies them.

Laughter, says the professor, can be contagious.

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

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

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

"It's the laughter. The joke is the terrible Christmas cracker joke, and it's just a reason to chuckle together."

The Search for the Perfect Festive Pun

Will we ever find the perfect gag?

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

In 2001, a psychologist established a research project for the planet's funniest joke.

More than tens of thousands of gags submitted, with ratings lodged by hundreds of thousands of participants around the world, he has a better understanding than most as to what succeeds and what fails.

The perfect Christmas cracker pun needs to be brief, he says.

"They must also be poor gags, jokes that make us moan," he adds.

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

"The reason is that if nobody finds it funny – it's the joke's shortcoming, not yours.

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

"That's a common moment at the gathering and I believe it's wonderful."