The Impact of Festive Cracker Puns Affect Our Minds?

"What was the price did Santa's sled cost? Nothing, it was on the house."

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

We're at a humor-evaluation session with a firm that produces products for gatherings. Its repertoire includes Christmas crackers.

The company's founder grins, nearly apologetically at the joke. But the pun has been selected and will appear in upcoming crackers.

"You measure the gag by the number of moans and the intensity of the groans at the table," the founder says.

The secret to a great holiday cracker joke is not the identical as a good gag per se. It is all about the setting - in this instance, the shared amusement of the holiday meal with elders, kids and potentially neighbours.

"The goal is for the gag to be a thing that unites the eight-year-old together with the grandparent," she adds.

The Science Behind Communal Amusement

Gathering to enjoy shared laughter is not only nothing new, experts argue, it is probably to be pre-human.

"So when you are chuckling with others at the holiday dinner you are engaging in what's very likely a really ancient mammal social vocalisation," says a professor.

Communal amusement, she explains, helps make and maintain social connections between individuals.

Researchers have found that a lack of such social exchanges can seriously harm mental and physical well-being.

"Those you talk to, and laugh with, it results in enhanced amounts of endorphin release," she adds.

Endorphins are the body's "happy chemicals" and are produced both to reduce tension and discomfort and in response to enjoyable activities, such as chuckling with loved ones over a truly awful festive cracker gag.

"It's not simply laughing at a silly pun with a Christmas cracker," she states. "You are actually performing a lot of the really important task of making, maintaining the connections you have with the people you love."

Which Happens Inside the Brain?

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

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

Employing brain scanning technology, a kind of brain scanner which shows which areas of the brain are working harder, researchers have been able to map the regions that get more blood flow.

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

"In the scanner we observed a very interesting pattern of neural activity," notes the professor.

A joke stimulates not just the parts of the mind responsible for hearing and interpreting language, but also brain regions involved in both planning and starting movement and those linked to sight and memory.

Combine all of this as a whole, and people listening to a pun have a sophisticated series of brain reactions that underpin the laughter we experience.

The Infectious Nature of Chuckles

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

"This activation occurred in parts of the brain that you would employ to contort your face into a smile or a chuckle," she explains.

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

Amusement, according to the professor, can be contagious.

So what does this mean for the laughter found at a Christmas table?

"People laugh harder when you are familiar with others," she says, "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 probable to be caused not by the gag itself, but from the response to it.

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

The Search for the Perfect Festive Pun

Will we ever find the perfect joke?

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

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

More than 40,000 gags submitted, with ratings provided by 350,000 participants globally, he has a clearer understanding than most as to what works and what does not.

The ideal Christmas cracker pun must be brief, he explains.

"But they also be poor gags, puns that make us groan," he continues.

The increasingly "awful" 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 holiday cracker jokes is that none of us find them humorous.

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