🔗 Share this article

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

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

We're at a humor-evaluation session with a company that makes products for gatherings. Its catalogue features Christmas crackers.

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

"The success is gauged by the gag by the volume of groans and the intensity of the groans around the table," she says.

The key to a great Christmas cracker joke is not the identical as a good joke in itself. It is all about the setting - in this case, the communal laughter of the holiday dinner table with elders, children and possibly friends.

"You want the joke to be something that brings the child together with the grandparent," she states.

The Science Behind Shared Amusement

Coming together to enjoy shared laughter is not only ancient, experts say, it is likely to be pre-human.

"So when you are laughing with others around the holiday table you are dropping into what's very likely a really ancient mammalian social vocalisation," explains a neuroscience expert.

Shared laughter, she explains, aids in make and maintain social connections between people.

Scientists have found that a absence of such social exchanges can seriously harm both psychological and bodily health.

"The people you talk to, and laugh with, it results in enhanced levels of 'happy chemical' release," the professor continues.

Endorphins are the brain's "feel-good compounds" and are produced both to reduce tension and discomfort and in response to enjoyable activities, such as chuckling with loved ones over a particularly awful festive cracker joke.

"It's not simply laughing at a foolish joke with a Christmas cracker," the expert says. "You are actually performing a lot of the really vital work of building, preserving the social bonds you have with those you love."

What Occurs In the Mind?

But what is truly happening within the brain when we hear a gag?

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

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a kind of neural imager which shows which areas of the brain are working harder, scientists have been able to map the regions that get more blood.

The research entails imaging the brains of healthy participants and then subjecting them to a collection of humorous phrases, paired with either a non-emotional sound, or pre-recorded laughter.

"During the study we observed a really interesting activation pattern of activation," says the neuroscientist.

A gag stimulates not just the parts of the mind responsible for hearing and understanding language, but also brain regions associated with both planning and initiating motion and those involved in sight and memory.

Combine all of this as a whole, and individuals listening to a pun have a sophisticated series of neural reactions that support the laughter we hear.

The Infectious Power of Chuckles

Scientists found that when a humorous word is paired with laughter there is a stronger reaction in the mind than the same phrase when accompanied by a non-emotional sound.

"This activation occurred in areas of the mind that you would employ to contort your expression into a grin or a chuckle," she says.

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

Amusement, according to the professor, can be infectious.

So what does this mean for the laughter heard around a Christmas gathering?

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

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

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

The Quest for the Perfect Festive Pun

Is it possible to discover the perfect joke?

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

In 2001, a professor set up a research search for the planet's funniest joke.

More than 40,000 gags submitted, with scores provided by 350,000 people globally, he has a clearer idea than many as to what succeeds and what does not.

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

"But they also be poor gags, jokes that make us moan," he continues.

The increasingly "awful" the gag, he states the more effective.

"This is because if nobody laughs – it's the gag's shortcoming, not yours.

"What's interesting about the Christmas cracker puns is that none of us find them funny.

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