Dolls are not just for children. Adults have been collecting their fair share of them. It might be that they have fond memories of a favorite doll, or maybe their parents could not afford a doll when they were children.
Boys have their own line of dolls, renamed action figures. Dolls representing superheroes are the most popular among the boys. Girls have their superheroes too, just think of Wonder Woman.
Dolls are used in the medical field to calm a nervous child or to help in a sexual abuse case. They were used in religious ceremonies to represent a certain deity for story telling. What person did not pay attention to a story when a doll was involved. Ventriloquist are very aware that the attention is focused on the talking doll and not on the mouth actually forming the words.