I have a metaphorical near-head-explosion for different reasons than the average person that I was referring to. For me, it's mainly a matter of the properties shown on the chart being more abstract and not knowing what observations they would map to (as wedrifid noted in his signaling analysis...). Compared to the Periodic Table, elementary particle chart also has significantly less order. With the PT, I may not know each atomic mass number, but I know in which direction it increases, and I know the significance of its arrangement into rows and columns. The values in the EPC seem more random.

I followed the link Silas provided. Rather than seeing a list to be memorised my brain started throwing up all sorts of related facts. The pieces of physics I have acquired from various sources over the years reasserted themselves and I tried to piece together just how charm antiquarks fit into things. And try to remember just why it was that if I finally meet my intergalactic hominid pen pal and she tries to shake hands with her left hand I can be sure that shaking would be a cataclysmic-ally bad idea. I seem to recall being able to test symmetry with cobalt or something. But I think it's about time I listened to Feynman again. Point is, being able to find the list of elementary particles more overwhelming than, say, a list of the world's countries requires a certain amount of knowledge and a desire for a complete intuitive grasp. That's not modesty-signalling in my book.