Dolls

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Is anyone else scared of dolls? Especially baby dolls . . .

I ask this because I was watching a show on discovery channel today and they were doing this study with people with traditional autism and they found that if they used a doll robot with them they would stim and generally be terrified of it - but if they used the same doll robot and covered up its face then the people were just fine with it . . .

I collect stuffed animals - I have over 800 stuffed animals - human dolls scare me - I mean, literally scare me - on the occassion that I've had someone ask me to find a doll for them online I keep it in my garage or in my truck, under something, generally a flower pot, until they come and get it - no kidding . . . it is totally irrational . . . I have been terrified of dolls, especially baby dolls, since I can remember . . .
Anyway, I saw this study and I thought - 'Hmmmmm . . . maybe that is another thing that AS explains . . .'

I'm not afraid of dolls, but I don't think I especially liked them much as a child. I had one or two baby dolls, which I played with occasionally.

I did have one rag doll type of doll when I was very little, she was cloth with yarn hair and had a soft rattle inside of her, and she and I were inseparable. When my mother put her in the wash, I would sit in front of the machine waiting for her to come out.

When people gave me Barbie dolls, however, they quickly found their way to the bottom of my toy chest.

I, too, have tons and tons of stuffed animals. I've always preferred stuffed animals over dolls. Of course, I also prefer real animals over real people (is this your case as well, animallover?) I now also make stuffed animals, which is quite a lot of fun. I love the tactility of them. I also liked to play with my little brother's metal matchbox cars, and have a good number of my own, as well.

There is some kind of scientific law (sorry, I can't recall the name) which states that the closer something gets to being human without actually being human, the more off-putting it becomes. This principle is being applied to AI, especially those researchers who aspire to create life-like human-like machines (like in science fiction movies). Essentially, unless they can make it look exactly like a human, they will stay away from creating something that is close, but not quite there.

I don't think it's just an AS/autistic thing to be afraid of dolls, because there are many stories and movies about evil dolls coming to life. Automatons, dummies, baby-dolls, and androids, it's all basically the same principle- something mimicing human form which takes on human characteristics (movement, personality, etc) undermines what it is that makes us as humans unique, in our minds. It makes us question how real and human we really are. I took a class on Gothic Literature and film last year, and this was one of the major themes in the class.

I don't know if that's the same reason why autistics are afraid of dolls, but I thought it was interesting information, so I figured I'd share it .

Never much liked baby dolls or barbies. I used to squish the barbie's faces to make them look less phony-nice and more appealing to me. I went through a phase of being obsessed with cabbage patch kids and making and dressing my own versions of them, but these were more cartoony and less human looking to me. I was mostly taken with stuffed animals. I HATED clowns and still don't like them.

That is interesting about the theory that the more human something is without being human the more it bothers people - but that makes sence . . .

I do like animals more than people personally - but I also very much respect that people are important to other people . . . I mean, I think everyone is very important and worthy of time and effort, but if I was given my druthers - if someone said 'Look - I'm going to get rid of all the animals or all the humans on earth, and you get to decide . . .' - well, I'd sure miss chatting with people online , but that would be about it . . .

I am also very scared of regular living human babies . . . I think that having a baby is the most important decision you can make - I love to make baby quilts for people when they are having babies (and people are really impressed by that for some reason - when quilts are amazingly easy to make . . . I digress) - but me as a parent would be a VERY bad thing . . . very bad . . . I can't touch babies much less hold them - they make me VERY nervous . . . and they don't feel right - they are too gooshy feeling . . .
So far as I can tell I feel the way that an NT feels when they see a human baby when I see a kitten or a baby rat . . . or any baby animal, really - baby ferrets are amazingly cute, too . . .

I love the feel of stuffed animals - in fact, when stuffed animal shopping, unless I am looking for a specific type of animal I choose one entirely based on feeling - if you don't know about Tylon - it is this new fabric that Ty has made some beanies and buddies out of - it is SOOOOO soft - I'm contemplating how much money it would cost me to buy enough beanie buddies to pelt them and make a quilt for myself out of it . . . but then I would proabably never get out of bed again . . . stim, stim, stim, stim, stim, stim, stim . . .

those 'reborn' lifelike dolls you see on eBay scare the pants off me - there is something creepy about them. just a bit too realistic.

Also there is a male doll in Europe called Baby Wee Wee, which does - it has a tap - can see some confusion arising from that one...

dunc

I love real babies. Absolutely adore them. Had five myself! But I think those newborn replica dolls are creepy.
I despised baby dolls when I was a child. I didn't even like Barbies, though I owned a few that had been received as gifts (because I was a girl, after all <sigh>). My NT sister had dozens of Barbies and several baby dolls.
I prefered building with Legos and drawing house plans on graph paper.

There's a theory called the Uncanny Valley Effect. Read this page: http://www.arclight.net/~pdb/glimpses/valley.html

Basically, yeah, there's a place where if something is very human looking yet not human enough, it will be creepy as hell. Check out that page though, very interesting read.

I never really cared for human like dolls. Baby dolls are kinda spooky. I have porcelien dolls, and some action figures that don't bother me but I never cared for barbies or baby dolls. I have lots of stuffed animals. About four shelves full and more stored away.

The concept of AI scares me. I think that's because i've seen too many movies about evil robots

Not dolls but cardboard full stand up pictues bug me.
yes animallover but humans are one more of the animals that live on earth. Most non-human animals lack the meaness that human do to and at humans as one of the not so good parts of being human the pack/herd /group thinking mode that can make humans very mean, but allso nice. So my vote keep the humans

I find that humans have much more meanness than any animal ever could - even a natural predator like a great white shark or a lion only hunts because he or she has to to survive - only humans kill and do mean things because they WANT to . . .

I agree that humans are just one of many animal species - now if we would just act that way . . .

barbarella!! !! !! scariest dolls ever!

V

I'm not afraid of dolls, I just could never stand them even as a young girl, I had no interest in barbies and very little in stuffed toys except a very selected few. I was more interested in playing with toy cars and the like and taking things apart to figure out how they were put together and how they worked. Maybe that is why I scored 69 on the Systemizing Quotient (SQ) test developped by Simon Baron-Cohen of the Autism Research Centre. Average females score around 46-49 if I recall correctly. I did very poorly on Simon's Emotional Quotient (EQ) test with only a 7 which is extremely low for a female. Guess maybe I tend to think maybe more like a male than a female.

I've always done badly on the emotional quotient thing, too - I also tend to get really wierd looks when I mention that, in my mind, raising a child is no different than training an animal . . . hence the reason I'm not a parent and never want to be . . .

I definitely think more like a man than a woman, also - and I don't have a problem with that at all - I see no use for emotions and excessive discussions of things, both of which are female traits so far as I can tell . . .

I can give a great example of this - I am also bi-polar and when I have problems with that and discuss them with one of the few females I like to be around she goes off into how I need to talk this through with a therapist and deal with all the issues in my past, etc . . .
Where as the males I like to be around say 'Well, of course, if it gets really bad you can stay with me, but otherwise call your Dr 'cause, clearly, your meds aren't working right . . .' - which makes much more sence to me . . .