Experiment To Find If Music Has Intrinsic Emotional Triggers Or Uses Programmed Association

We hear diffent types of music and it triggers certain types of feelings. I tell people that here's all you need to know about song writing. (besides needing to be talented to do it) Major cords are happy and positive, minor chords are sad or spooky, they're colors in your pallet to paint a picture.

But why? Is this intrinsic or are we just conditioned to react that way when we hear certain chords? First order of business might be to explore music of different cultures and see what they consider happy or sad, but from what I see, there seems to be a pretty universal human response to sad, happy or scary music.

Have the test subjects watch only entertainment for a year with flipped soundtracks. As the chainsaw wielding psycho bursts into the room play the Benny Hill theme and in the cartoon where the happy bunny wins the race against the mean old tortoise play the theme from Friday the 13th.

Then, after several months of Clockwork Orange style association manipulation ask them what kind of moods these swapped styles invoke when they hear them.

Any volunteers?