🔗 Share this article

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

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

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

The firm's owner grins, almost apologetically at the gag. But the joke has made the cut and will appear in upcoming crackers.

"You measure the joke by the number of groans and the intensity of the groans at the table," she says.

The key to a good holiday cracker joke is not the same as a good gag per se. It is all about the context - in this instance, the shared laughter of the Christmas dinner table with grandparents, kids and possibly neighbours.

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

The Neuroscience Behind Communal Amusement

Gathering to enjoy shared laughter is not only nothing new, scientists say, it is likely to be pre-human.

"Therefore when you are laughing with people at the Christmas dinner you are engaging in what's very likely a really ancient mammalian social sound," explains a professor.

Communal laughter, she explains, aids in forge and strengthen social connections between individuals.

Scientists have found that a absence of such social exchanges can seriously harm mental and physical health.

"Those you converse with, and share laughter with, it results in enhanced amounts of endorphin release," she adds.

These natural chemicals are the body's "feel-good compounds" and are released both to reduce tension and discomfort and in response to enjoyable experiences, such as laughing with loved ones over a particularly awful Christmas cracker gag.

"It's not simply laughing at a silly joke with a holiday cracker," the expert states. "You are actually doing a lot of the really vital work of making, maintaining the connections you have with those you love."

What Occurs In the Mind?

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

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

Using brain scanning technology, a type of brain scanner which shows which areas of the mind are more active, 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, accompanied by either a neutral sound, or recorded chuckles.

"In the scanner we got a very fascinating pattern of neural activity," notes the professor.

A joke stimulates not just the areas of the brain responsible for hearing and understanding language, but also brain areas associated with both preparation and initiating movement and those linked to sight and memory.

Put all of this as a whole, and people hearing a joke have a sophisticated set of neural responses that support the amusement we hear.

The Infectious Power of Chuckles

Researchers found that when a funny phrase is paired with laughter there is a stronger reaction in the mind than the identical phrase when followed by a non-emotional sound.

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

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

Laughter, says the professor, can be contagious.

So what does this imply for the chuckles found around a Christmas gathering?

"You laugh harder when you know people," she notes, "and laughter increases further when you like them or care for them."

When it comes to Christmas cracker puns, she says, the positive effect is more probable to be caused not by the gag in itself, but from the response to it.

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

The Search for the Perfect Festive Pun

Will we ever find the ultimate gag?

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

In 2001, a psychologist set up a research project for the planet's funniest gag.

Over 40,000 gags submitted, with ratings provided by hundreds of thousands of people globally, he has a better understanding than many as to what works and what does not.

The perfect festive cracker joke needs to be short, he explains.

"They must also need to be poor jokes, jokes that cause us to moan," he continues.

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

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

"What's interesting about the Christmas cracker puns is that not one person find them humorous.

"It creates a shared experience at the gathering and I think it's lovely."