The Impact of Holiday Cracker Gags Affect Our Minds?

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

This one-liner is met by groans that resonate through a storage facility in the capital.

We're at a humor-evaluation session with a company that makes supplies for social events. Its catalogue includes festive crackers.

The company's owner grins, nearly sheepishly at the gag. But the pun has made the cut and will feature in upcoming crackers.

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

The key to a good holiday cracker pun is not the same as a stand-up joke in itself. It is all about the context - in this case, the shared amusement of the Christmas dinner table with elders, kids and potentially neighbours.

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

The Science Of Communal Laughter

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

"Therefore when you are laughing with others around the holiday dinner you are engaging in what's very likely a really ancient mammal social sound," says a professor.

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

Scientists have found that a absence of such social exchanges can significantly damage mental and physical well-being.

"The people you converse with, and laugh with, it results in increased levels of endorphin uptake," the professor continues.

Endorphins are the body's "happy chemicals" and are produced both to alleviate stress and pain and in response to enjoyable experiences, such as chuckling with loved ones over a truly awful festive cracker joke.

"You're not just laughing at a foolish joke with a Christmas cracker," she says. "You are actually performing a lot of the really vital task of building, preserving the social bonds you have with the people you care about."

Which Happens Inside the Brain?

But what is actually happening within the mind when we listen to a gag?

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

Employing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a type of neural imager which indicates which areas of the brain are more active, researchers have been able to chart the regions that get more blood flow.

Testing involves scanning the minds of volunteer subjects and then subjecting them to a collection of humorous phrases, paired with either a non-emotional sound, or recorded chuckles.

"During the study we got a really fascinating pattern of activation," says the professor.

A gag activates not just the parts of the mind in charge of auditory processing and interpreting language, but also brain areas associated with both planning and initiating motion and those involved in vision and recall.

Put these elements together, and individuals hearing a joke have a complex series of brain responses that support the laughter we hear.

The Infectious Power of Laughter

Scientists discovered that when a funny phrase is combined with laughter there is a greater response in the mind than the same word when accompanied by a neutral sound.

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

It means we are not just reacting to funny jokes, they are responding to the amusement that accompanies them.

Laughter, says the expert, can be infectious.

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

"People laugh harder when you know others," she says, "and laughter increases further when you are fond of them or love them."

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

"The laughter is key. The gag is the dreadful holiday cracker joke, and it's just a reason to laugh as a group."

The Search for the Perfect Festive Pun

Will we ever find the perfect gag?

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

In 2001, a psychologist established a research search for the world's most humorous gag.

More than 40,000 jokes submitted, with ratings lodged by hundreds of thousands of participants around the world, he has a better idea than most as to what succeeds and what fails.

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

"They must also be poor jokes, jokes that make us moan," he adds.

The increasingly "awful" the gag, he states the better.

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

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

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