The Impact of Christmas Cracker Gags Affect Our Minds?

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

This quip is greeted with groans that resonate through a storage facility in London.

We're at a humor-evaluation session with a firm that produces supplies for gatherings. Its repertoire features festive crackers.

The firm's founder smiles, nearly sheepishly at the gag. But the pun has been selected and will feature in upcoming crackers.

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

The secret to a great holiday cracker joke is not the identical as a stand-up gag per se. It is all about the context - in this case, the communal laughter of the holiday meal with grandparents, kids and possibly friends.

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

The Science Of Shared Laughter

Coming together to enjoy shared amusement is not only ancient, scientists say, it is likely to be older than humanity.

"Therefore when you are chuckling with people at the Christmas table you are dropping into what's almost certainly a truly primordial mammal social sound," says a professor.

Shared amusement, she says, aids in make and maintain social connections between people.

Researchers have discovered that a lack of such interactions can significantly damage mental and physical health.

"Those you converse with, and share laughter with, it leads to increased amounts of 'happy chemical' uptake," the professor adds.

Endorphins are the body's "happy chemicals" and are produced both to alleviate stress and pain and in reaction to enjoyable activities, such as laughing with friends over a truly awful festive cracker gag.

"You're not just laughing at a silly joke with a Christmas cracker," she says. "You are actually performing a lot of the truly important task of making, maintaining the connections you have with those you care about."

Which Happens In the Mind?

But what is truly happening inside the mind when we hear a gag?

A tremendous amount happens in response to humour, it transpires.

Employing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a type of neural imager which shows which areas of the brain are working harder, researchers have been able to map the areas that get more blood flow.

The research entails imaging the brains of volunteer subjects and then subjecting them to a collection of funny phrases, paired with either a neutral sound, or pre-recorded chuckles.

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

A gag stimulates not just the parts of the mind responsible for auditory processing and interpreting speech, but also neural areas involved in both planning and initiating movement and those linked to vision and recall.

Put these elements together, and individuals listening to a joke have a complex set of neural reactions that underpin the laughter we hear.

The Contagious Power of Laughter

Scientists discovered that when a humorous phrase is combined with laughter there is a stronger reaction in the brain than the same phrase when followed by a non-emotional sound.

"This was in parts of the mind that you would use to contort your expression into a smile or a laugh," she explains.

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

Laughter, according to the professor, can be infectious.

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

"People laugh more when you know people," she notes, "and you laugh more when you are fond of them or care for them."

When it comes to Christmas cracker jokes, she explains, the positive factor is more probable to be triggered not by the gag itself, but from the response to it.

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

The Quest for the Ideal Festive Pun

Will we ever find the ultimate gag?

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

Years ago, a professor set up a scientific search for the world's most humorous gag.

More than tens of thousands of jokes submitted, with scores provided by hundreds of thousands of participants globally, he has a better idea than many as to what succeeds and what does not.

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

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

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

"The reason is that if nobody laughs – it's the joke's fault, not your own.

"What's interesting about the holiday cracker puns is that not one person considers them funny.

"It creates a shared experience around the table and I believe it's wonderful."