I find this to be true. I find that while I work with people who are perfectly capable of becoming experts in a given category, they protect their brains from having to hold unnecessary information that isn't relevant to their current course. This is a very important survival tactic in our field as one can get easily distracted.
I can count on one hand the number of people I could walk up to in a hallway with a random article and geek out for 3hrs--like a mental foodie. A rare profile indeed.
So you start at the level you expect the person to understand but you often have to go few levels lower (simplier).
I understand its needed for laymen, as in this saying “if you cannot explain something simple enough - you dont understand it well enough”.
Tho I often find myself explaining stuff the same way to experts in the field :)
Which makes me realize -> real experts are extremely rare.