🔗 Share this article

"How much did Father Christmas's sleigh cost? Nothing, it was on the house."

This joke is met by moans that resonate through a warehouse in the capital.

This describes a joke-testing meeting with a firm that produces supplies for social events. Its catalogue includes festive crackers.

The firm's owner smiles, nearly apologetically at the gag. But the pun has made the cut and will feature in upcoming crackers.

"You measure the gag by the volume of groans and the loudness of the groans around the table," the founder explains.

The key to a good holiday cracker joke is not the identical as a good gag per se. It is all about the context - in this instance, the communal amusement of the holiday dinner table with elders, children and potentially friends.

"You want the gag to be something that unites the eight-year-old together with the grandparent," she states.

The Science Of Shared Amusement

Coming together to experience shared laughter is not only nothing new, scientists argue, it is likely to be older than humanity.

"Therefore when you are chuckling with people around the holiday dinner you are engaging in what's very likely a really primordial mammalian social vocalisation," says a neuroscience expert.

Shared laughter, she says, aids in forge and strengthen social connections between individuals.

Researchers have found that a absence of such interactions can seriously damage mental and physical health.

"Those you converse with, and share laughter with, it results in increased amounts of 'happy chemical' release," the professor continues.

These natural chemicals are the body's "happy chemicals" and are released both to reduce stress and pain and in reaction to enjoyable experiences, such as laughing with loved ones over a truly awful festive cracker joke.

"You're not just chuckling at a silly joke with a holiday cracker," the expert states. "You are in fact doing a lot of the truly vital task of making, maintaining the social bonds you have with the people you love."

What Happens Inside the Brain?

But what is truly taking place inside the mind when we listen to a gag?

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

Using brain scanning technology, a kind of neural imager which indicates which parts of the mind are more active, researchers have been able to map the regions that get more blood flow.

Testing involves imaging the minds of volunteer participants and then subjecting them to a collection of humorous words, paired with either a non-emotional sound, or pre-recorded chuckles.

"In the scanner we got a really fascinating pattern of activation," notes the neuroscientist.

A joke stimulates not just the areas of the mind responsible for hearing and understanding language, but also neural regions involved in both preparation and starting movement and those involved in sight and recall.

Combine these elements together, and individuals hearing a joke have a sophisticated set of neural reactions that underpin the amusement we hear.

The Infectious Nature of Chuckles

Scientists found that when a funny word is combined with laughter there is a stronger reaction 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 expression into a grin or a chuckle," she says.

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

Amusement, according to the expert, can be infectious.

So what does this imply for the chuckles heard at a Christmas table?

"You laugh more when you are familiar with others," she says, "and you laugh more when you are fond of them or love them."

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

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

The Search for the Ideal Festive Pun

Will we ever discover the perfect gag?

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

Years ago, a psychologist set up a scientific search for the world's funniest gag.

Over tens of thousands of gags later, with ratings provided by hundreds of thousands of people around the world, he has a better idea than many as to what succeeds and what does not.

The perfect festive cracker joke must be brief, he explains.

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

The more "awful" the joke, he states the more effective.

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

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

"That's a shared moment at the table and I think it's wonderful."