How Do Holiday Cracker Puns Influence Our Minds?

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

This quip is met by groans that resonate through a warehouse in London.

This describes a humor-evaluation meeting with a company that produces products for social events. Its catalogue includes festive crackers.

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

"You measure the joke by the volume of groans and the loudness of the groans at the table," the founder explains.

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

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

The Science Of Shared Laughter

Gathering to enjoy communal laughter is not only nothing new, scientists argue, it is probably to be older than humanity.

"So when you are chuckling with others at the holiday table you are engaging in what's very likely a really ancient mammalian social sound," explains a neuroscience expert.

Shared laughter, she says, aids in forge and strengthen social bonds between people.

Researchers have discovered that a absence of these social exchanges can significantly harm both psychological and bodily well-being.

"Those you converse with, and laugh with, it results in increased levels of endorphin release," she continues.

Endorphins are the body's "happy chemicals" and are produced both to alleviate tension and discomfort and in response to pleasurable experiences, such as chuckling with loved ones over a truly terrible Christmas cracker joke.

"It's not simply laughing at a foolish joke with a holiday cracker," the expert says. "You are actually performing a lot of the truly important work of making, maintaining the connections you have with the people you love."

What Happens Inside the Brain?

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 type of neural imager which indicates which areas of the mind are working harder, scientists have been able to chart the regions that receive more blood.

The research entails scanning the minds of healthy participants and then exposing them to a collection of funny words, accompanied by either a neutral sound, or recorded laughter.

"In the scanner we got a really interesting pattern of activation," notes the professor.

A gag activates not just the areas of the mind in charge of auditory processing and understanding speech, but also brain areas associated with both preparation and starting movement and those involved in sight and memory.

Combine all of this as a whole, and individuals hearing a pun have a complex series of neural reactions that support the laughter we experience.

The Contagious Power of Laughter

Researchers found that when a funny word is combined with chuckles there is a stronger response in the mind than the identical word when followed by a neutral sound.

"This activation occurred in parts of the mind that you would employ to contort your expression into a smile or a laugh," she says.

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

Laughter, according to the professor, can be contagious.

So what does this mean for the laughter found at a holiday gathering?

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

When it comes to festive cracker puns, she explains, the positive effect is more likely to be triggered not by the gag in itself, but from the response to it.

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

The Search for the Perfect Festive Pun

Will we ever find the perfect gag?

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

In 2001, a professor set up a research search for the world's funniest gag.

More than tens of thousands of gags later, with scores lodged by hundreds of thousands of people around the world, he has a clearer understanding than many as to what succeeds and what fails.

The perfect Christmas cracker pun must be brief, he says.

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

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

"The reason is that if no-one finds it funny – it's the joke's shortcoming, not yours.

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

"That's a common moment around the table and I think it's wonderful."