The brain has a preference as to how much incoming data it likes to receive at any given moment. That is the VOLUME of data that comes in. Your I:A:E Ratio is where you are at on that scale. Your brain either prefers a lot of data all the time or little data all the time or somewhere in between. It is crucial to gain understanding of this for your social and business interactions. Without knowing where you are or knowing where the person you are interacting with is at on this scale you can be overwhelmed and go into brain safe mode or you can send the other person into brain safe mode.