What Do Holiday Cracker Puns Affect Our Minds?

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

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

This describes a joke-testing meeting with a company that produces products for social events. Its repertoire features festive crackers.

The firm's owner grins, nearly apologetically at the joke. But the joke has been selected and will appear in future crackers.

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

The secret to a great holiday cracker pun is not the same as a stand-up gag in itself. It is all about the setting - in this case, the communal amusement of the holiday meal with elders, kids and possibly neighbours.

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

The Science Behind Communal Laughter

Coming together to enjoy shared amusement is not only nothing new, experts argue, it is probably to be older than humanity.

"Therefore when you are chuckling with others around the Christmas table you are engaging in what's almost certainly a truly ancient mammal play vocalisation," explains a neuroscience expert.

Shared laughter, she says, helps make and maintain social bonds between people.

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

"Those you talk to, and laugh with, it leads to enhanced amounts of endorphin release," the professor adds.

These natural chemicals are the body's "happy chemicals" and are released both to reduce tension and discomfort and in reaction to enjoyable experiences, such as laughing with friends over a truly awful festive cracker gag.

"You're not just chuckling at a foolish pun with a holiday cracker," the expert says. "You are in fact performing a lot of the truly important work of building, preserving the social bonds you have with those you care about."

What Happens In the Mind?

But what is truly happening inside the brain when we hear a joke?

A tremendous amount happens in reaction to humour, it turns out.

Employing brain scanning technology, a kind of brain scanner which shows which parts of the brain are working harder, scientists have been able to map the regions that receive more blood.

The research entails scanning the minds of healthy subjects and then exposing them to a database of funny phrases, accompanied by either a non-emotional sound, or pre-recorded laughter.

"In the scanner we got a very interesting pattern of neural activity," says the neuroscientist.

A gag activates not just the areas of the brain in charge of auditory processing and understanding language, but also neural areas involved in both planning and starting movement and those linked to vision and memory.

Put these elements together, and individuals listening to a joke have a complex series of neural responses that support the laughter we experience.

The Infectious Nature of Laughter

Researchers found that when a funny word is combined with chuckles there is a greater reaction in the brain than the same word when followed by a neutral sound.

"This activation occurred in areas of the mind that you would employ to move your face into a grin or a laugh," she explains.

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

Amusement, according to the expert, can be contagious.

So what does this imply for the laughter found around a Christmas table?

"People laugh more when you know people," she says, "and laughter increases more when you like them or care for them."

When it comes to festive cracker jokes, she says, the feel-good effect is more probable to be triggered not by the gag itself, but from the response to it.

"It's the laughter. The joke is the terrible holiday cracker joke, and it's just a pretext to laugh as a group."

The Search for the Ideal Cracker Joke

Will we ever find the perfect gag?

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

In 2001, a professor set up a scientific search for the world's funniest joke.

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

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

"But they also be bad gags, jokes that cause us to moan," he continues.

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

"This is because if no-one laughs – it's the gag's shortcoming, not your own.

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

"That's a shared experience around the gathering and I believe it's lovely."