Is anyone afraid of dolls or ventriloquist dummies?
Automatonophobia is the fear of ventriloquist dummies, and pediophobia is the fear of dolls. There’s a phenomenon known as “uncanny valley” where a person has a more and more positive response as a toy gets more and more humanlike, until a certain point at which it becomes TOO humanlike, and the approval drops to fear. It is the image of something that is ALMOST, but NOT QUITE human that strikes a negative response– almost like looking at a human with an uncanny deformity.
